Following the last Featured Watch which presented the Adorex 8000, with its high beat movement and innovative regulator, I thought I’d contrast that with a post about Citizen’s very first wrist watch movement – the type ‘F’.

Following the establishment of the Shokosha Watch Research Institute in 1918 the first watches produced in 1924 were pocket watches, which were, of course, the fashion at that time. After its pocket watches were called ‘Citizens’ by the mayor of Tokyo the company re-formed itself as the Citizen Watch Company in 1930. And a year later the first wrist watches were produced, using a Swiss design in the form of the type F:

This is a sub-second design, i.e. it has a small second hand above the 6 o’clock marker, and is a relatively simple and basic design, running at 5 beats per second (18,000 beats per hour):

The type F was produced into the 1950s, but the design was changed quite significantly during its production run – the 1950s design had much more angular top bridge, and with a variety of jewelling, see this example:

Typical of their day, these are small watches – my early model in the first two pictures is only 27mm wide. I don’t suppose that in 1931 the people making these would have thought that from these small beginnings Citizen would become the world’s largest watch manufacturer….