citizen hi beat

by

Citizen Highness 36000


Citizen Highness… nice name that must stand for something! Well.. it does! Citizen made this as a high grade variant of the Leopard line and has a chronometer level of accuracy, Highness grade. This was achieved due to a series of factors, including the fact that is a high beat piece, running at 36,0000 bph.

citizen highness 36000

The case is made in stainless steel, with brushed 6 and 12 o’clock surface and the rest being polished. The case back screws into place and is made of stainless steel too. It is marked Parawater and 4-770277 Y. The serial no dates this watch August 1971. The mineral glass is flat and has a beveled edge, as usual with Citizen. The most interesting fact is the crown, signed CH and made of two parts, an inner one and an outer one. This is very important because this watch has a very uncommon feature. So… let’t talk about the way it functions!

The movement is the Citizen 7730 calibre, 36,000 bph, with 26 jewels and day and date display. It is an automatic one and hand winding also. The movement can be winded in the first crown position. Pulling it out a position, will set the time. The seconds hack for exact time setting. Push the crown back into first position and be ready to set the date and the day. How to do that? Just push the button (the inner part) of the crown. Yes, the crown is itself a pusher! So, hold the watch 12 o’clock side up and press the pusher and the date will advance with every click. Turn the watch with the 6 o’clock upwords and press the crown again. The day will change! How smart is that!?

citizen highness manual

It is a rare watch, and full of interesting features. I wish it had a special case back (as the other special Citizen).

Update 2018 March (pictures from on-line sellers) – just a few more variants:

Read more about Leopard range HERE.

Advertisement
by

Citizen Highness Chronometer Officially Certified 36000


COSC is Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute, which is the institute responsible for certifying the accuracy and precision of wristwatches in Switzerland.

Japan had something similar and so did Citizen with this model. It is a gorgeous piece powered by a very accurate movement. This particular watch, model 4-720300 Y ,  was made in February 1970 and it is marked Parawater.citizen chronometer officially certified 36000So, let’s start with the movement! It is the Citizen calibre 7230 based on 72xx calibre that is found in most of the Leopard range. Read about Citizen Leopard watches HERE. It is an automatic with 28 jewels, day and date, hacking seconds and it is running at 36000bph. It is operated by the “C” signed crown that sets the time, day and date, and winds the movement. It is engraved with it’s own serial, like most of the special movements Citizen produced. All this makes it a special piece and very accurate; after all it is Citizen Chronometer Officially Certified, the first generation of what later became Citizen Highness. In fact this one is called Leopard Highness. Such a special movement needs a special, stainless steel, all polished cushion shaped case. The caseback has it’s own special logo, a gold inlay medallion. The same logo is applied on the dial too. Talking about the dial, well, it is awesome! It’s simple, clean, with a vertical grain brushed surface. It has applied hour markers, logos and day-date frame. All the rest is printed in black. The skeleton hands are also black and so is the simple sweeping second hand. The entire face is protected by a mineral faceted (9 surfaces) crystal that plays with the light making it look really special; well after all it really is!

citizen highness manual

UPDATE:

Here is it one with a black dial I found on-line (pictures from the seller)

vintage citizen chronometer officially certified black

And here we have a beautiful story about a similar watch written by Adam: enjoy it! LINK HERE

by

Adam’s great story of Citizen Chronometer


Adam is a great guy from Australia with a great watch story to share. Without further ado I will let him tell you all about it! 🙂

“So…about the watch. I didn’t wear it to my wedding as the wedding was in Sydney 4 hours drive from here (Port Macquarie) followed by a honeymoon in Melbourne. I did not want to lose it.

We had an amazing wedding staying in Sydney, then in Melbourne.

I never had the chance to get the watch serviced before the wedding as I was very busy.
When I was 10 years old I stayed with my Aunty and Uncle for a week. They live on acreage in a small village one hundred and sixty kilometres west of Sydney called Old Bowenfels. My uncle Karl was an elderly man who worked as an electrician for his entire working life.

As Australia was isolated when he was younger he had to be innovative or creative to enjoy modern technology. He built a television set using a radar screen, a valve radio, and a device that could record voices or sounds onto vinyl. He recorded my great, great grand parents singing Silent Night in English and in Danish.

He was an amazing man who still maintained the property into his mid eighties cutting wood and loading coal into the “Donkey” (a very, very old hot water system). He was very resourceful and refused to replace things that still work, if it failed he would repair it.

When I found the watch it was sitting on a shelf covered in dust and dirt. The watch had been sitting there so long that the leather band had dried out and gone solid. The watch must have had a pretty hard life as what you saw in the photos. I asked him if I could have it and being a generous man he said yes without a second thought. I took the watch home with me and always held it in high regard. He passed away two years ago after a long battle with asbestosis and dementia. Knowing he was unwell for a long time it was hard for me as I have never really grieved his passing or even cried.

I think of my uncle often because he was like a grandfather to me. I spent a great deal of time on their property and was very close to my uncle. He taught me to weld, basic electronics and like I said also served as a grandfather figure.
That is why I hold this watch in high regard because when I hold it, it reminds me of my childhood and of my time spend with my uncle.

I also feel guilty about the watch at the same time as my Uncle became estranged from his eldest son for a very long time, his grandchildren did not want to see him or my aunt as they felt that they were boring. At the funeral I sat near the front of the church. It was very awkward as my third cousins, his grand children were devastated at losing Karl. I think it was because they were sad for the time lost that they could have spent with him.

So now the watch sits in a watch case with many other watches that I like. I never wear it because I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of wearing it but also I like keeping the watch as it represents the time that I have spent with my Aunty and Uncle. It is something that is very special to me.”

citizen chronometer officialy certified

Thank you Adam! I am sure the readers of Vintage Citizen Watches loved the story just as much as I did! Many times the watches are a lot more than time telling devices and they have great value due to our emmotional connections and the stories they tell about our past, about our loved ones, about our memories.  

A few words about the watch: Citizen had a line of hi beat (36,000 bph) called Leopard. Adams watch was the top of the Leopard. They had their own logo and medallion as seen on the screw in caseback.  The case is gold plated, with a stainless steel caseback and a gold inlay medallion. All were 36,000 bph and most were made with 28 jewels, but there were also 31 and 32 jewels models. Adam’s watch has 31 jewels. These use the 7250 movement (7230 in the 28 jewel ones).

Read more about another beautiful Citizen Leopard here: https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/11/22/citizen-leopard-36000/

And another special Citizen Chronometer Officially Certified HERE.

by

Citizen Leopard 28800 4-720032TA


It is always nice to visit new places and when one of these places is Hong Kong there is no way that you should leave empty handed (pun intended). So, on a watch hunt I went. I talked to my friends from the city about the best places to find vintage watches around there and started roaming the streets. Little did I know that fate was going to prove that my hotel was perfectly positioned so, in the end, one thing leading to another, I found my dream watch only because I bought the one in this article (that is a another story to be told after I get THE watch in my possession). Back to the story, here is what I found:

citizen leopard 28800The interesting feature of this watch is the little word that describes, well… a big cat: the Leopard. The Leopard range is special due to the high beat movements. Some of them are 28,800 and some are 36,000 bph. This particular range of watches was introduced in about 1969 and only lasted for a few years, enough time for Citizen to make about 15-20 variations of Leopard movements based on 72xx and 77xx calibers. (as a side note: way too many variations and not enough DNA unfortunately) Also a great number of cases and designs were made so I am sure you can find a Leopard perfect for your taste. 🙂

This particular watch has a stainless steel polished cushion shaped case, a simple, smooth, polished bezel and a stainless steel case back. It was made in April 1974 (funny thing I have noticed – a lot of the Citizen watches I have/had were made in April). The quartz revolutions was about to change the watch world. Just think about the fact that Citizen today is the largest watch company based mostly on quartz, the very same quartz that almost killed what we love so much, the vintage mechanical Citizen watches. 😦 The dial is silver, simple, with a beautiful sunburst effect. The applied hour markers have a black line while the 12 o’clock one has two black lines. These black details work very well with the black hour and minute hands. The sweeping second hand is polished. The Citizen logo is also applied while the rest of the text is printed in black: “automatic, 28800, Leopard, 26 jewels”. One can easily understand from reading the dial that the movement inside is automatic with 26 jewels. On top of that it can also be winded by hand. The date is quick set while the day changes by advancing the hands past midnight. It is a hacking movement (the second hands stops when setting the time). The picture below is a part of the scans made by me of Citizen vintage catalogues.

Citizen leopard calibre 7200 36000

As a conclusion: beautiful watch and an interesting reminder of how fate works! 

Read more about Citizen Leopard 36000 here:

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/11/22/citizen-leopard-36000/

by

Citizen Leopard 36000 – model 67-2050


When you say the word Leopard next to Citizen you know this is a special one. 

Why is is special? Read on and see. 🙂

citizen leopard

The first thing you notice when holding the watch is the beautiful mesh stainless steel bracelet that fits the case as a high end modern watch would. The case is stainless steel too and has an interesting oval shape, with integrated lugs. The bezel is polished and so is the entire case except for the frontal surface that has a radial brushed finish. The crown is simple, signed CTZ. Another detail is discovered when seeing the watch from the side: a beautiful arched shape, following the wrist of the lucky wearer.

The dial, seen through the oval mineral crystal, is grey-blue, sometimes more one or the other depending on the light, and very elegant. The hour indexes are applied and so is the day date window frame. The hour and minute hands are dark grey and the seconds hand is white. Why is it white? Because the second hand is special. It is special because on the dial except for the applied logo Citizen and Automatic at 12, at 6 it is written 36000, Leopard, 28 jewels. And this says something about the movement. 🙂

citizen leopard copy

The calibre inside is the Citizen hi-beat parashock 7230, running at 36000 bph.  It has 28 jewels and a beautiful white sweeping central second hand that hacks, it can be winded by hand also and has a quickset date feature. The day is set by advancing the hour hand pass midnight.

A beautiful elegant watch and I consider myself to be very fortunate to have found this time capsule in a NOS state, even though it is made on April 1974.

later edit: I found the watch in the next picture on yahoo japan so the pictures are not mine but belong to the seller. This is the first solid Gold superbeat 10 Leopard I see. There are also a few models in stainless steel and some gold plated Leopards too, but this is the first I see in solid gold. Needless to say it is in perfect condition. The selling price is JPY 350,000.

gold citizen leopard

Here is a scan made by me of the Citizen calibre 72xx from a vintage Citizen catalogue. I hope it helps understanding a little better the inside of these beautiful watches.

Citizen leopard calibre 7200 36000

Read more about a vintage Citizen Leopard POCKET WATCH here: 

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/02/10/citizen-leopard-36000-pocket-watch-67-2192/

And read about The 28800 Citizen Leopard here:

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2015/01/17/citizen-leopard-28800-4-720032ta/

by

VIDEO – Citizen Leopard pocket watch 67-2192


An interesting, hard to believe it exists, Citizen automatic pocket watch.

Why should a pocket watch be an automatic? How come it has a display back? I will try to gather more information about this and I hope I will get some answers. For now, this is the watch, an automatic Citizen pocket watch, a 36000 bph, Leopard, with a 7230 calibre.

For now, after more than 12 hours, it is spot on and didn’t lose or gain a second.

Enjoy!

A little bit more info added. Read here what I found out so far:

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/02/10/citizen-leopard-36000-pocket-watch-67-2192/