Sweephand's Vintage Citizen Watch Blog

If you’re interested in Citizen’s fine 8110a flyback chronograph there’s a very informative thread on the Watchuseek forum showing some excellent work by ’31jewels’, who is a master watch repairer. He shows in detail the restoration and servicing work he’s done both on his own and a customer’s watches, and the thread is now complete after starting back in mid-April. A highly recopmmended read!:  http://forums.watchuseek.com/f21/citizen-bull-head-8110a-restoration-service-31-jewels-677877.html

In 1969 Citizen’s electro-mechanical watches, introduced in 1966, became known as ‘Cosmotrons’. The technology in these combined new printed circuitry and a battery with a relatively conventional balance and hairspring. But one Cosmotron was an exception to this convention – the ‘GX’ – since this was in fact a very different animal, in that it was a tuning fork watch.

Citizen’s tuning fork watches were known as ‘Hisonics’ (see my example here: http://sweep-hand.org/2012/01/07/this-weeks-featured-watch-19-the-hisonic/), so I’m not sure why Citizen chose to place the GX in the Cosmotron line. Notably Citizen was the only company with an agreement from Bulova to produce the movements, and they are marked ‘LIC. BULOVA’ as a result, rather than ‘PAT. BULOVA’ as found elswewhere.

Originally developed in the USA by Bulova, the tuning fork technology was an innovation that turned the 360 vibrations per second of a tiny tuning fork into circular movement, resulting in much greater and guaranteed accuracy that even the best mechanical watches couldn’t match. The equivalent Bulova movement to the Hisonic is the 218, whilst the equivalent for the GX is the 219. However quartz technology soon eclipsed even the tuning fork’s time-keeping qualities, so the Hisonic and Cosmotron GX models enjoyed only short production runs in the mid-1970s.

The GX is now a fairly rare piece, and is seen less often for sale than the Hisonic. My example is from November 1975:

The dial carries the unique GX applied logo:

The case back is plainer than the Hisonic models, some of which carried a gold medallion, and is a simple snap on design. This one is engraved, possibly to celebrate 15 years of service. The serial number confirms November 1975 production:

The 3701B movement has 11 jewels rather than the 15 found in the Hisonic, and the movement is not stamped ‘LIC. BULOVA’ . The crown is signed (CTZ) and in normal position the date can be quickset, at one click out the watch is hacked and time can be set, at second click (fully out) the battery is fully disconnected when the watch is not in use:

However one of the most obvious differences is that only one coil is used:

And cheaper plastic is in evidence rather than the copper plate seen in the Hisonic:

The lower jeweling, use of a single coil, greater use of plastic and plain case back are clear evidence that cost savings were applied to this model, and maybe this is why Citizen branded it a Cosmotron, keeping the Hisonic as a more exclusive high end piece.

Whatever the reasons, the movement functions perfectly well!

When the well known Crystal Seven series was launched in 1965, using the ’52′ base caliber, a number of other models were also produced with variants of this movement. I’ve covered two of them in previous ‘Featured Watch’ posts – the 520 (http://sweep-hand.org/2012/03/20/this-weeks-featured-watch-27-the-520-auto-dater/) and the 540 (http://sweep-hand.org/2012/04/28/this-weeks-featured-watch-31-the-540-auto-dater/). The latter was the date only version of the 52xx movement, and this was also used in the more attractively named ‘Crystal Date’.

The Crystal Date was made with 17, 21, 27 and 33 jewel 5400 and 5401 movements, and there was also a Super Crystal Date Model, using the 33 jewel movement. I’m assuming from the name that it had the same hard mineral glass used in the Crystal Sevens. Most noteworthy is that the Crystal Dates (and another model using the same movement, the ‘Compact’) feature a special applied logo on the dial, above the 6 o’clock marker. This week’s watch is the 17 jewel variant, which has elegant lumed hands and lumed dots outside the hour markers:

Typical of its day, the bezel is fluted, whilst the back shows production inMarch 1967. The back carries the rarer ‘OR’ case type code:

The crown is the older ‘C’ style:

Here’s the 5401 identification on the movement:

And finally back to the logo – on this one it’s a mix of applied and printed. The central part is an applied decorative ‘A’, for automatic, with a printed design around it:

On higher jeweled models, the logo is all applied, and they also have an applied rather than printed ‘Citizen’ signature. Click on the ’52 Crystal 7 / Seven Star Family Tree’ blogroll link to see where the Crystal Date fits in the movement group.

I’ve added a new page focusing on what is a unique feature of Citizen’s vintage automatics from the early 1960s – the ‘Jet’ movement. With its circular geared rotor this was Citizen’s standard caliber for its automatics in the early to mid-1960s before moving over to the more familiar swinging weight type from around 1965.

The new page provides infomation and pics, as well as a little video – there’s also a summary of the movement numbers, production dates and model names. Hopefully it provides a useful addition to sit alongside the Movement Table.

Although the swinging weight rotor is efficient and reliable and is the standard method for automatic winding, the Jet rotor is more aesthetically rewarding in my opinion – i.e. it looks cool

A year after Citizen launched the ‘Crystal Seven’ line, several derivative models using the same base movement were also launched. These lesser known models didn’t all carry the ‘crystal’ badge, presumably because they lacked the hard mineral glass. I featured one of these a few weeks back – the ’520′ – which has both date and day windows: http://sweep-hand.org/2012/03/20/this-weeks-featured-watch-27-the-520-auto-dater/, whilst other models did have the mineral glass but not the day window and were called the ‘Crystal Date’.

Citizen’s movement numbers often tell us whether day and / or date windows are present – the first ’2′ in the number means that both date and day windows are featured, whilst ’4′ means only a date window. So the ’520′, using the 5203 movement has both windows, and the ’540′ therefore has only the date, and uses the 5400 movement:

Unlike my 520 Auto Dater, this dial is quite plain. with no ’7′ logo. A fluted bezel is typical of watches from the mid-1960′s. The 520 and 540 were both launched in 1965/6, and probably had only short production runs. My example is from July 1966:

Here’s the 5400, 17 jewel movement – with the swinging weight rotor that had replaced Citizen’s ‘jet’ rotor seen in their early 1960′s watches:

The movement number is stamped close to the balance wheel, as usual:

The crown has the older ‘C’ style signature – the ‘CTZ’ mark was to replace this at the end of the 1960s:

The advantages of the swinging weight rotor can be seen in the slimness of the case:

The ‘dauphine’ style hands are typical of the era:

Compared to the Crystal Seven models, the 540 and its 520 sibling are relatively unknown, but are interesting models using the same movement in a less expensive package – at the time the Crystal Sevens retailed from around JPY10,000, the 540 from about JPY7,000. You can see the movement ‘family tree’, and seek out the 520 and 540 models here:  http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stephen.netherwood/52FamilyTree.v1Secure.pdf

I’ve done a number of revisions to the Movement Table, to take it to Version 5.0

Available via the Blogroll link

There’s a great thread on the WUS Forum started there by ’31Jewels’, who is a master watch repairer. He is currently working on a couple of Challenge Timers (‘bullheads’) and is showing what he’s been doing to restore them, one is his own, the other a customer’s.

It’s interesting stuff and well worth a look imho so here’s a link:

http://forums.watchuseek.com/f21/citizen-bull-head-8110a-restoration-service-31-jewels-677877.html