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Citizen has updated and expanded its Series 8 collection, a popularly priced set of sporty steel watches previously sold only in Japan, and will offer them in the U.S. market.

With two models soon to be available in North America, Series 8 watches boast 40mm steel cases, strong anti-magnetic properties, three-hands with date and updated automatic movements. Alongside The Citizen, a 40mm steel watch set with Citizen’s impressive new automatic Caliber 0200, the Series 8 marks Citizen’s strongest entry into the U.S. mechanical sport watch market in many years.

From the new Citizen Series 8, this is the 40mm 870 Mechanical.

While Citizen has a long history as a manufacturer of mechanical movements, the company in recent years has focused much of its marketing and distribution efforts on its light-powered Eco-Drive technology. For U.S. buyers, Citizen’s Miyota mechanical movements are more likely found powering watches made elsewhere than within Citizen’s current U.S. lineup. For instance, Bulova, owned by Citizen, and many independent bands utilize Citizen-manufactured automatic movements. 

Look for Citizen to draw new attention to its own extensive history as a manufacturer of mechanical watches as it launches Series 8 and The Citizen within the United States.

The watches

Citizen will offer two models within Series 8 this fall. One, the 870 Mechanical, is a sporty round watch with a two-part bezel, which sets it apart from the second model, the 831 Mechanical, which features an octagonal case and one-piece bezel.

Citizen’s new 870 Mechanical is a sporty round watch with a two-part bezel.

The 870’s case is finished using both hairline and mirror finishes, and its dial is set with larger hands and markers than the 831 models. As a result, it’s the cleanest of the new Series 8 designs, with a focus on high visibility and casual sportiness, especially with its steel bracelet integrated directly into the steel case.

The automatic Citizen Caliber 0950 that powers this model offers the stronger specifications of the two Series 8 movements. It is rated to -5 /+10 seconds per day, and will operate for fifty hours on a full wind. Look for the 870 with either a black or a white dial.

Citizen’s automatic Cal. 0950 is found in model 870.

The 831 Mechanical offers a somewhat thinner octagonal case with crown protector, and a blue-dialed option.

The 831 Mechanical, with gold-tone case.

The latter, in a gold-tone steel case, arrives on a more leisurely blue calf leather strap. The automatic Citizen Caliber 9051 that powers this model is rated to -10 /+20 seconds per day, and will operate for forty-two hours on a full wind. Both watches are rated water resistant to 100 meters.

The new Citizen 831 Mechanical.

The 830 Mechanical

A third Series 8 model, the 830 Mechanical, is not scheduled to be offered by Citizen in the United States. This model adds a more complex dial to the same octagonal case used by the 831. It features a new sandwich-style dial with mother-of-pearl, mesh and metal layers.

The new 830 Mechanical, sold only in Japan, features a three-layered dial with mother-of-pearl and metal layers.

If the 830 appeals to your sense of style, you’ll have to search your overseas sources to purchase one. Thus far, the Citizen’s U.S. division has announced that it will only bring the Model 831 and 870 to the domestic U.S. market.

The movements   

Citizen notes that both the movements in the Series 8 offerings have been upgraded recently to provide enhanced magnetic resistance, and both are significantly thinner than earlier versions, even with the anti-magnetic upgrade.

Citizen explains “the watches also have enhanced magnetic resistance essential for our modern digital lives by providing protection against magnetic fields generated by smartphones, tablets, and other devices that can affect the accuracy of the watch.”

The new 831 Mechanical.

Prices: $1,500 (870 Mechanical), $1,000 (831 Mechanical) and $950 (831 Mechanical, with gold-tone case and blue leather strap). Citizen will make the Series 8 models available this fall.   

Originally launched as a quartz watch, Maurice Lacroix’s archetypal Aikon series’ latest edition features an option with 
an automatic Swiss movement inside. The Aikon Venturer truly allows its wearer to venture because it is built rock-solid and is anti-magnetic, shock resistant and rated water resistant to an impressive three hundred meters.

The Maurice Lacroix Aikon Venturer

The watch’s sporty look and diver-style overtones instill the robust feeling of a tool watch, but with style enough to wear anytime. At 43mm in diameter, the sapphire-capped stainless-steel case is full-figured but not huge, and actually quite comfortable on the wrist with either the solid-link bracelet or natural rubber strap.

With the brand’s deep technical background as a case maker and private label supplier to other (famous) Swiss brands, you can be sure that the Aikon is built with all the fine details that define a high quality watch.

Close inspection under a loupe reveals the finite perfection of those details that the naked eye appreciates as a whole, but may not individually dissect at a glance. Markers and printing are precise, as is the fit and finish of the bezel, strap, and case back.

Maurice Lacroix smartly adds convenience to the Aikon’s stylish design with a strap fixed to the lugs by means of the brand’s own Easy Change system, which has two bars fitted with protruding prongs. These make it possible to remove the rubber strap in two steps and to replace it with the finely articulated five-link satin-finished steel bracelet we’ve seen in earlier Aikon models.

Priced at $1,890 on the rubber strap and $1,990 on the solid-link stainless steel bracelet, the Maurice Lacroix Aikon Venturer is pound for pound (or dollar for dollar) as good or better than certain Greek Alphabet watches costing more than triple the price.

 

If the design of this watch feels somehow familiar, you won’t be surprised to learn that Detroit Watch co-designers Patrick and Amy Ayoub have once again applied their classical blueprint to their American-based brand.

The Pontchartrain Louis XIV model from the Detroit Watch Pontchartrain collection. A version with a moonphase display is also available.

Two variations of the brand’s new stand-alone Pontchartrain collection are housed in an elegantly stepped 42mm stainless steel case. Both feature automatic ETA Swiss-made movements, one with a sub-second and the other with a choice of silver or gold moon-phase complication.

All the qualities you’d expect in a high-quality, high-value watch are here, including sapphire crystal, exhibition back, superior decoration on the Swiss movement and a calfskin strap, which all come together to make a fine watch. Under the loupe the hands are as superb as the dials, and even the crown looks, feels and functions beautifully.

Those outside the Detroit area might ask why “Pontchartrain” for a Detroit-based brand? The Ayoubs chose this name to recall the historic fort that was built in 1701 and actually ended up applying its name to the city. France’s King Louis XIV commissioned Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit as the first permanent French settlement in the area and as a center for the fur trade and French military power in 1701.

Built along the Detroit River in order to protect the French trade from the British, the fort was named in honor of Louis XIV’s minister of marine and colonies, Louis Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain. Le Detroit, French for ‘the strait’ eventually came to identify Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit and the surrounding area and after 1751, was known simply as Fort Detroit.

The Ponchartrain limited edition Louis XlV.

A nice watch – and a history lesson.

Price: $1,295, available at www.detroitwatchco.com.

Just in time for the holiday season, A. Lange & Söhne adds sparkle to two models within its Saxonia collection.

First, the Glashütte-based watchmaker is debuting its newest Saxonia Thin with a solid-silver dial coated with shimmering black gold flux. The newest model reprises the glittery aspect of the much-discussed blue-gold flux dial first seen on the Saxonia Thin from 2018.

The new A. Lange & Söhne Saxonia Thin with a solid-silver dial coated with shimmering black gold flux. Limited to 50 pieces.

The newest edition is one millimeter larger in diameter (40mm versus 39mm for the blue flux dial version) but maintains the same 6.2mm thickness, slim hour and minute hands and applied baton-style markers. The new model’s unusual black gold flux dial shimmers thanks to tiny copper-colored particles, which make the deep-black surface sparkle.

A.Lange & Söhne explains that the production process for gold flux was discovered during the 17thcentury in Venice. The glass and its copper constituents are heated, forming microscopically small copper crystals. Artisans must then carefully cast the material onto the silver dial in order to maintain an even, homogeneous surface.

A. Lange & Söhne places the very thin (2.9mm) manual-wind wound caliber L093.1 inside the Saxonia Thin.

Inside, A. Lange & Söhne places the very thin (2.9mm) manual-wind wound caliber L093.1, A. Lange & Söhne’s thinnest movement that, despite its compact size, offers a power reserve of three days.

Like the blue version, the new black gold-flux dial on this Saxonia Thin is a premiere for any A. Lange & Söhne watch. The new model, unlike the earlier piece, is a limited edition, with fifty pieces on offer. Price: $25,800.

Saxonia Outsize Date

The watchmaker’s other dial update finds the A. Lange & Söhne Saxonia Outsize Date now available with a silver-colored dial, offered on 38.5mm white gold or a pink gold case (above). This addition complements the existing black-dialed options.

The new A. Lange & Sohne Saxonai Outsize Date, here in white gold with an silver-colored dial.

You might recall that this collection highlights its otherwise minimalistic dial with a large presentation of the date near the top of the dial. Made specifically to enhance visibility, the large date indicator (a touchstone display for the brand) is unusual in that it utilizes two separate display surfaces for the units and tens and is at least twice as large as in watches of a comparable size.

A. Lange & Söhne balances the date with a subsidiary seconds dial at the 6 o’clock position. The watchmaker has developed its automatic L086.8 movement with a particularly strong mainspring barrel in order to deliver an impressive power reserve of 72 hours. Price: $27,700.

The new Saxonia Outsize Date (two models, at left) and the new Saxonia Thin.

As we noted last week, Parmigiani Fleurier celebrated the 70th birthday of its founder, watchmaker Michel Parmigiani, with a seventy-piece limited edition steel Toric Heritage watch in honor of the first watch he designed.

The new Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Heritage, a limited edition of 70.

The new watch’s blue dial is decorated with eye-catching, radiating Grain d’Orge guilloché, a pattern also found on the gold rotor. Inside, the in-house COSC-certified Caliber PF441 features two barrels and seven hand-beveled bridges.

As is standard with Parmigiani Fleurier, the movement within the 42.8mm steel-cased watch is finished to haute horlogerie standards, with Côtes de Genève stripes, spiral-wound and circular-graining on the plates alone. The watch’s solid 22-karat rose gold rotor, visible through the clear sapphire caseback, features the same Grain d’Orge guilloché engraving seen on the dial.

The watch’s solid 22-karat rose gold rotor, visible through the clear sapphire caseback, features the same Grain d’Orge guilloché engraving seen on the dial.

The Founder

The company chose to echo its founder’s first watch in large part because the Toric design (which was updated in 2017) reflects Michel Parmigiani’s own history and interests.

Michel Parmigiani was born in the Swiss canton of Neuchatel and grew up with a devotion to both watchmaking and architecture. He has described the Toric case as a design inspire by the famed Fibonacci mathematical sequence and by the Golden Ratio that has inspired thousands of years of art and architecture.

Toric collection sketch by Michel Parmigiani.

According to Parmigiani, every aspect of the Toric’s design starts with the Golden Ratio, including the relationship between the hands, the fluted angles in the crown, the length-to-width ratios, the rate of curvature of the lugs as they taper away from the case, even the caseback design and placement of the sapphire crystal.

While he opted to formally study watchmaking (at the Val-de-Travers watchmaking school in the La Chaux-de-Fonds Technicum) Parmigiani started his career restoring historical clocks, pocket watches and related objects. Among the clients who came to Michel for restoration and maintenance was Switzerland’s Sandoz Family Foundation, which owned a significant collection of historical automata and clocks.

Michel Parmigiani was in the 4th year of his watchmaking studies in 1967, when this picture was taken.

Parmigiani eventually established his own restoration workshop, attracting a list of haute horlogerie clients that also included the Patek Philippe museum.

“I remember feeling a bit like a pariah, starting this adventure against all advice,” Parmigiani says in a press release. “Restoring antique timepieces saved me from nihilism. Working, as I was during this period, on so many wonders from times gone by, made the idea that traditional watchmaking might disappear absolutely unthinkable to me. Restoration gave me the confidence I needed to pursue my watchmaking dreams, despite the naysayers.”

Parmigiani Fleurier headquarters in Fleurier.

The Sandoz foundation encouraged Parmigiani to create his own watch brand­– with their full support. This was the beginning of Parmigiani Fleurier, which launched in 1996.

Today, Parmigiani Fleurier encompasses five specialized Swiss firms. Each of the factories also produces parts for other haute horlogerie clients, including La Montre Hermès, the watchmaking division of the celebrated French leather goods house, which is a co-owner of the Vaucher movement manufacturer.

Parmigiani Fleurier will make seventy examples of the new Toric Heritage watch. Price: $17,700.

The movement within the 42.8mm steel-cased watch is finished to haute horlogerie standards.

Specifications: Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Heritage

(Ref. PFC909-0000300-HA3282, a limited edition of 70).

Case: 42.8mm by 10mm polished steel, sapphire crystal and back, individually numbered, 30-meters of water resistance.

Dial: Blue Grain d’Orge guilloché, indexes are rhodium-plated 18-karat gold, javelin-shaped hands with luminescent coating.

Movement: In-house PF441 automatic, two barrels, 28,800 vph, 55-hour power reserve, 22-karat solid gold rotor with guilloche finish.

Strap:  Hermès Abyss Blue alligator strap with steel folding clasp.

Price: $17,700.