Collection: Vintage Citizen

Citizen was founded in 1918, as Shokosha Watch Research Institute by Kamekichi Yamazaki. Yamazaki lead Yamazaki Shoten, a metals company focused on watches, and was Chief Secretary of the Tokyo Commercial and Industrial Timepiece Cooperative. The current Citizen was founded in 1930 by Kamekichi Yamazaki, Yosaburo Nakajima, and Ryoichi Suzuki. The two other men having worked in the watch industry previously, Nakajima became Citizen’s first President and Suzuki became its first plant manager. The name 'Citizen' came from Tokyo’s Mayor at the time, Count Shinpei Goto, who was a friend of Yamazaki’s. He named their first watch 'Citizen', as a symbol of his wish to make it a widely worn timepiece.

Citizen's first timepiece was actually released before Citizen was formed, in 1924, when they were still the Watch Research Institute. They produced a timepiece which used the Citizen Caliber 16 and was allegedly first given to the Emperor as a gift.

In 1931, Citizen released its first wristwatch, the Model F, which had a production run of 26 years, lasting until 1957. The Model F was followed by Citizen’s first women’s wristwatch, the Model K, in 1935. The 1950s saw the company release the first Japanese calendar watch, the Citizen Calendar, released in 1952. Citizen kept their innovative streak up throughout the 1950s, releasing an alarm and shock-resistant watch, but more notably, Japan’s first waterproof timepiece in 1959. This went further in the 1960s with the Citizen Cosmotron in 1966.