Examples of Citizen’s Leopard series were some of the first watches I bought – they weren’t too expensive, yet they have good quality high beat movements which can run very accurately. There are two Leopard calibres, the 72 and the slightly later 77. The quick way to identify them is by the location of the crown – it’s at 3 o’clock on the 72, and at 4 o’clock on the 77.  Jewelling varies, from 22 up to 28. The 28 jewel movements run at 36,000 beats per hour, and the lower jewelled ones run at 28,800 bph. Some even higher grade watches are part of the these movement families, namely the Leopard Highness and the (almost mythical!) Glorious, and they have more jewelling still – 31, and one Leopard Highness can be found with 32.  Note to self: I need to do a new reference article on the Leopards, the old stuff is not now very accessible….

The 7710 movement can be hand wound (there are few Citizen automatics that don’t have this feature) and it has quick-set day and date and ‘hacks’ too. There are some more colourful and fancier dials, but this one does its job very well. I particularly like the dagger hands with black centre line, they are very smart imho. This example is from June 1973:

It’s running well 🙂