Citizen Flexes Its Muscles with a Near-Perfect Everyday Watch

On Christmas Day, 1969, Seiko changed the watch industry forever when it launched the Astron, the world’s first quartz-powered watch.

Fast-forward seven years to 1976, and it was fellow Japanese brand Citizen‘s turn to make history. That’s when it launched Eco-Drive, the world’s first light-powered analog watch. Since then, Eco-Drive, which draws energy from any light source, not just sunlight, has become Citizen’s flagship feature.

Now, to celebrate 50 years of its groundbreaking achievement, Citizen has launched a special edition of its best watch, The Citizen, that is just about as perfect as an everyday watch can get.

50 never looked so good

Citizen

The Cal. A060-powered The Citizen is, to put it lightly, one hell of a watch. Once you get past any preconceived notions about the supposed inferiority of quartz watches, The Citizen is practically perfect in every way.

It’s well-sized at 40mm across the case and 12.2mm tall to the top of its AR-coated sapphire crystal. Both its case and bracelet are made of Citizen’s proprietary Super Titanium, which is five times more scratch-resistant than stainless steel. It’s also coated with the brand’s Duratect Platinum treatment, which adds a touch of real platinum to the mix for a lustrous sheen.

The case and five-link bracelet feature a mix of fine brushing and mirror polish, with the latter giving off Grand Seiko Zaratsu vibes. The bracelet features screw-in links and a deployant clasp (there is no microadjustment, unfortunately), and the watch boasts a robust water resistance of 100m.

Citizen

Of course, the most special thing about any The Citizen watch is the movement. The Cal. A060 powering this example has a whole lot going for it. Its accuracy is bananas, deviating only +/-5 seconds per year, making it one of the most accurate watch movements in the world. It also features enhanced magnetic resistance to 4,800 A/m and an automatic shock counteraction function that locks the hands on impact and then automatically adjusts them to the correct time.

Functionally, it’s also a stealth perpetual calendar. The only visible indicator of this is a nicely framed and chamfered date window at 3:00, but pressing the pusher set into the case at 2:00 allows you to use the seconds hand to set and display the month and leap year, meaning once it’s set, you’ll never have to adjust the date until the battery dies, which won’t be for a long time: the watch runs for 7 months on a full charge, 1.5 years in power save mode, and the battery can last up to 25 years before it needs replacing.

Citizen

That’s not all. The A060 movement has one more trick up its sleeve. Pull the crown out to the first position, and you can independently adjust the hour hand while the seconds hand keeps running. This allows you to easily correct for time zone changes when traveling for Daylight Saving Time without worrying that you’ll screw up your dead-accurate perpetual calendar.

These are features you’ll find on all A060-powered The Citizen models, but what makes the new Eco-Drive 50th Anniversary Limited Edition extra special is its gorgeous dial.

Several The Citizen models feature hand-dyed dials made of delicate Japanese washi paper, as does this one. But here, the dial debuts a gorgeous new shade of deep green made entirely using natural plant dyes.

Citizen

Citizen produced the color in collaboration with Watanabe’s, an indigo dye workshop in Tokushima, Japan, and it’s made of a blend of indigo and a yellow dye made from Japanese silver grass (kariyasu).

But not just any silver grass and indigo would do. Citizen selected the kariyasu that only grows near Mt. Ibuki in Shiga, called Ibuki kariyasu, which produces the soft yellow color they needed. A trial-and-error process eventually found the right shade of indigo to pair with the yellow dye to create the desired shade of green, with the process taking twice as long as Citizen’s previous hand-dyed washi dials.

The result was worth the effort. Paired with a gold-tone seconds hand and applied The Citizen eagle emblem at 6:00 to go along with the usual lume-filled dauphine hands and applied baton markers, the dial is a real head-turner.

Availability and pricing

With its resistance to water, scratches, shocks and magnetism, its versatile wearability, its insanely accurate and travel-ready perpetual calendar that lasts for decades, and its drop-dead gorgeous, hand-crafted dial, The Citizen Eco-Drive 50th Anniversary Limited Edition really shows off Citizen’s full capabilities as a watchmaker. Eco-Drive hasn’t stuck around for a half-century for nothing, after all.

In case you couldn’t tell by the name, the Eco-Drive 50th Anniversary Limited Edition is a limited edition (shocker). Citizen is making just 650 of these beauties, each priced at $3,095.

Citizen

The Citizen Eco-Drive 50th Anniversary Limited Edition

Specs

Case Size	40mm
Movement	Citizen Cal. A060 high-accuracy quartz
Water Resistance	100m

• $3,095 at Citizen

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