Citizen

By Bruce Shawkey

Most people think of Citizen as a modern watch. Did you know the brand goes all the way back to the 1920s. Prior to Citizen, most of the watches sold in Japan were pocket watches and were imported from Switzerland. Determined to create a Japan-made rival product, the Shokosha Watch Research Institute, the precursor of CITIZEN, launched its own pocket watch in 1924. It was an excellent product, but it lacked a name. The mayor of Tokyo, Count Shinpei Goto was asked to suggest one. The name he came up with was “CITIZEN,” an expression of the hope that as many people as possible — citizens — would buy the watches and keep them for a long time.

Pocketwatches evolved into wristwatches. At first, Citizen watches remained in Japan, but the mechanical timepieces were eventually exported to the United States. And then mechanical watches turned to quartz, though Citizen still makes mechanical watches. Here's a mechanical Citizen from the early 1950s, featured in an ad from the Asian edition of Europa Star magazine. It's a very handsome multi-date watch, and if you didn't know better, would swear it was made in Switzerland: