To commemorate Veterans Day, Citizen launches a new Promaster Navihawk pilot watch and partners with Jump for Valor, a charitable non-profit organization that assists veterans through skydiving and aerial sports.
The new 48mm steel watch is powered by light via Citizen’s robust Eco-Drive technology and synchronizes to hyper-accurate radio-control timekeeping technology, which allows for time adjustments in twenty-six time zones.
The Citizen Limited Edition Promaster Navihawk AT8225-51L.
The watch is packed with useful indicators, including a chronograph, perpetual calendar, power reserve, city time zone display, a sliding scale for measurement and a rotating navigational bezel with a compass.
The watch will be issued in three versions. One is a limited edition cased in a black ion plating ($850) and comes with a matching Citizen clock. This model, a limited edition of 1,500, features a cobalt blue gradient dial and bright orange accents.
The Limited Edition Promaster Navihawk is limited to 1,500 pieces worldwide and comes with a Citizen clock that matches the watch.
Two additional models offer a choice between a gradient blue dial ($650) and a green dial ($695). The former is cased in traditional steel and offers silver-tone hands and red accented luminous hands and markers.
The second frames its green dial with grey ion-plated stainless steel accented with yellow highlights.
As part of its Purposeful Power campaign, Citizen will donate watches to the Jump For Valor Veterans Day event, which starts today and runs through Sunday in Suffolk, Virginia. Citizen will fund tandem jumps and one veteran to become certified to skydive. In addition, Citizen will gift a Promaster Air watch to each of the participating veterans.
Citizen launches a new limited edition pilot’s watch this week in conjunction with 1% for the Planet and Everybody Solar, two energy conservation organizations.
The watch, which joins the Promaster series, is an Eco-Drive (light- powered) Limited Edition Navihawk. The 48mm black ion-plated steel watch boasts a cobalt blue dial with pilot-friendly orange accents.
The new Citizen Promaster Eco-Drive Limited Edition Navihawk.
The watch includes not only fully synchronized radio-controlled timekeeping technology (which will update time automatically in twenty-six time zones) but also a chronograph, a complete perpetual calendar, 12/24-hour time options, a power reserve indicator and day/date display.
Citizen’s Eco-Drive technology, demonstrated here, powers the watch using only light.
Sales of the watch will benefit the two conservation organizations and Citizen’s new “Purposeful Power” ad campaign. For every #mylight moment shared to @citizenwatchesus, Citizen will donate $5 to Everybody Solar towards the goal of 100% funding of a solar installation project next Spring. This would be the second joint project between Citizen and Everybody Solar. In recent months, Citizen’s donations helped complete the new 35 kilowatt (kW) array at Glacier National Park’s headquarters.
“Our message of Purposeful Power is aspirational so as to reflect the desire of both the Citizen brand and our consumers to treat the planet, and those around us, with respect and to make a positive contribution to the world,” says Jeffrey Cohen, President of Citizen Watch America.
Citizen includes a matching Citizen clock with each watch.
Citizen is limiting production of the watch to 1,500 pieces worldwide. As an added bonus, Citizen is also including a matching Citizen clock with each watch. Price: $850.
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.
Citizen this week launches The Citizen, a new automatic watch powered by Caliber 0200, the manufacturer’s first new mechanical movement since 2010.
The new movement was developed at Citizen headquarters in Japan with technical and finishing input from Manufacture La Joux-Perret, a Citizen-owned Swiss movement company.
The Citizen is a 40mm steel watch characterized by a new, integrated (lug-free) steel bracelet and a subtly sparkling, electroformed black dial.
Caliber 0200, which features a free-sprung balance, chronometer-level accuracy and sixty hours of power reserve, will make its debut inside The Citizen, a 40mm steel watch characterized by a new, integrated (lug-free) steel bracelet and a subtly sparkling, electroformed black dial depicting a ‘rippled sand’ effect.
Citizen says the new watch’s design was inspired by a 1924 pocket watch made by Citizen’s predecessor, the Shokosha Watch Research Institute. That 1924 design, which was named ‘Citizen,’ also displays a small seconds hand at 6 o’clock.
The Shokosha Watch Research Institute changed its name to Citizen after the name of its 1924 pocket watch.
The movement
Caliber 0200 is designed to exceed the Chronometer standard (ISO 3159) benchmark for accuracy. Citizen says the movement achieves an average daily accuracy of -3 to +5 seconds. By utilizing a free-sprung balance wheel, Citizen has also created a highly shock resistant caliber since watches with free-sprung balance wheels are known for their ability to maintain stability of rate over time. Citizen utilized the LIGA fabrication process (photolithography) to enhance the precision of escape wheel and the pallet fork.
Caliber 0200 is Citizen’s first new mechanical movement since 2010.
For Citizen, the look of the movement was as important as the technical aspects.
“We made countless layouts of the gears – the barrel, the balance wheel, the escapement – to create a beautiful movement,” according to Taro Nakagawa, who works in Citizen’s mechanical watch element development department. “Eventually we arrived at a layout that shows off the balance wheel, with its beautifully finished overlapping gears, to maximum advantage.”
The results of this aesthetic focus are clearly visible through the clear sapphire caseback. From the back the viewer can see polished gears and decorative finishing of all gear train components, including the rotor, the main plate and the bridges, which are satin-finished and feature diamond-cut edges.
Citizen applies different finishes to every detail—satinage for the upper surfaces of bridges and diamond-cut for the outer edges.
Rigorous testing
Citizen explains that its manufacturing facility tested the cased movement for a full seventeen days, under various conditions, and in six positions at three different temperature levels, before its watchmakers manually attach each The Citizen bracelet.
As noted, that bracelet is decidedly contemporary and fully integrated into the steel case of The Citizen. Technicians complete the bracelet and case by applying hairline and mirror-finishes, meant to capture the light at varying degrees as the watch sits on the wrist. Similarly, the sand-ripple-pattern electroformed black dial is also designed to reflect light in novel patterns.
At first look, finishing on the dial, movement and bracelet are exciting, and likely superior to Citizen’s previous mechanical models. As sample models become available, we’ll offer an ‘on the wrist’ assessment of The Citizen’s finish and fit.
Finally, Citizen adds a stylized eagle icon, with wings spread, to the top of The Citizen’s dial. The symbol marks The Citizen collection for the brand and is meant to depict “foresight and action based on a clear vision of the future.”
With the enhanced mechanical focus represented by the new Caliber 0200, and this eye-catching debut watch, Citizen seems well prepared for that future.
Price: $6,000, available in September.
Specifications: Citizen “The Citizen” (Model NC0200-90E)
Case: 40mm by 10.9mm steel, sapphire caseback and crystal with anti-reflective coating, water resistance to 50 meters.
Movement: Automatic Caliber 0200, accuracy of average -3 to +5 seconds per day, running time of approx. 60 hours when fully wound, 28,800 vph, Certificate of Compliance included.
Dial: Electroformed black to create sand-ripple pattern, hour, minute and small seconds indications.
Citizen’s new Satellite Wave GPS F950 Titanium 50th Anniversary Limited Model, a 550-piece limited edition we first told you about in June, is now available on the Citizen website.
Citizen’s new Satellite Wave GPS F950 Titanium 50th Anniversary Limited Model, now available.
The watch was launched by Citizen to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Citizen X-8 Chronometer, the world’s first titanium watch.
Building on Citizen’s Satellite Wave technology, which assures highly accurate GPS-based timekeeping anywhere on earth, the newest model combines Citizen’s newest version of that GPS satellite technology inside with a decidedly luxurious multi-layered case nicely integrated with an angular-link bracelet.
Citizen outfits the new watch with its own Duratect 2 DLC surface hardening that protects the 47.5mm case. The luxury accent here is an inner bezel that Citizen creates using its rose-gold-like Duratect Sakura Pink titanium, the same eye-catching metal that coats the caseback.
Citizen is now selling its Satellite Wave GPS F950 Titanium 50th Anniversary Limited Model exclusively on its website. Price: $5,000
