Here is a very subjective designed watch from the 1970’s. Some of you will love it others will think its totally awful. This is my first Citizen Cosmotron watch. Its a hybrid movement watch from an interesting era of horology. The 1970s was a time where quartz came out, LED watches and then LCD watches so boundaries were always being pushed as manufacturers tried to find new ways to show time accurately.
The 70s was also an era for interesting designs and the Japanese especially were making bold colour choices along with facet crystals and crazy case shapes. This watch as you can see has many of these traits, traits I personally am drawn to and collect for their uniqueness.
It is what is powering this watch that is the most interesting part. This watch uses a mechanical movement with a balance wheel to regulate time but instead of a mainspring to provide the power it uses a battery! That’s right battery operated mechanical watch.. There is however not a quartz crystal in sight.
The whole watch mechanism works in reverse to a standard mainspring powered watch. There is a small circuit board with a transistor, There is a large flat coil that is then sandwiched between two wheels on the balance wheel where the bottom wheel has magnets on. The transistor pulses the circuit and coil which in turn reacts with the magnets to then turn the balance wheel. This then turns another wheel rather than an escape wheel. That wheel interacts with a wheel in the train and thus motion through the train is then passed to the hands. The end result is a watch that will show a smooth second hand sweep, Tick like a mechanical watch but will have the reliability of a battery as power. Take this watch off your wrist for the weekend and then on Monday morning its still keeping time as it should rather than any traditional mechanical watch which would have wound down after a few days of zero use.
They are an interesting genre a bit like the Seiko Elnix and EL movements of the time.
I made a video on the restoration of this watch on my channel which you can see in the link below. I show all the mechanics and intricacies this movement has to offer.
I would encourage you to take a look at the video for further reference and education on how it all works.
The Citizen Cosmotron 7804 movement has an interesting way to quick set the day and date. Looking at the watch 12 o clock up you press the crown in and it sets the date. Turn the watch upside down so 6 is at the top and then press in the crown it will then set the day! Here is a short of how that works.
I will leave this blog now with many photos of this Citizen.
