CITIZEN WORLDTIMER (GMT) 68-0516 1973 ALL ORIGINAL JUST SERV À MONTIGNY LE BRETONNEUX

Citizen Worldtimer (GMT) 68-0516  1973 All Original  Never relume - never polished Caliber 7450 JUST SERVICED 2X Citizen Original Crowns ungraved CTZ The feeling you get when you strap it on your wrist is like no other. The light is passing through the acrylic crystal and bouncing back from the silver dial, the inner rotating bezel with all those cities… The case is made of stainless steel, 42 mm diameter (rather large even for today’s standards), with a cushion shape. The frontal side is brushed, in a circular motion and the sides and the part where the bracelet connects to the case are polished. There is also a polished bezel that holds the domed acrylic crystal. The shape of the case protects the twin crowns (signed “CTZ”), one for winding the watch and one for rotating the inner city bezel. The SS caseback is screwed in, marked “parawater”. Parawater is a term used by Citizen to describe what later will become “water resistant”. The dial is silver with applied Citizen logo and hour markers. They have green luminescent material applied. There is luminescent material on the hands too, except for the seconds hand that is polished and the “GMT” hand that is short and painted red.  The 24 hours ring might be all black or half blue, half black (just as the 2014 released Rolex GMT – ceramic bezel – 40 years later). The movement is automatic with hand winding capability, hacking seconds calibre 7450, with 21 Jewels. Just as all the other Citizen movement this one is nothing fancy, just a simple working, reliable one. As time passes, you learn to  really appreciate the simplicity of Citizen movement, the sound of it, the movement of the hands…  The date is quickset and it beats at 21.600 bph. The year this one was introduced was 1971. The nice thing about this movement is that added to the three classic hands, there is a forth one (the red small one) that is circling the dial once every 24 hours. In order to operate the Worldtimer function you need to use the 24 hours hand and the inner bezel. You have to rotate the inner bezel until the timezone where you are in is opposite to the 24 hours hand. Then you have to look for the city you want to know the time in and read the time on the inner 24 hours ring, next to that city. A real traveller watch, so entertaining to operate, so simple and so clever, nice wrist presence and gorgeous!