Citizen is the world’s largest watch manufacturer and looking at their well-designed divers – like this full-serviced early 1970 Citizen V2 Ref. 4-720491Y diver here, on a vintage Japanese Bambi stainless-steel bracelet – and one can easily see why.  The V2 combines classic sport diver design with affordability, leaving us with great designs like the one here.
 
Citizen produced a range of divers in throughout the 1960s and 1970s – a few were/are relatively well known, but others are not and rarely seen.  Citizen began production of the V2 sport diver range – to include the Seven Star and others – in 1969. The divers were made with a range of dial colors – black, silver, blue, orange and red, and all had day and date complications.
 
In 1969, Citizen’s second generation Seven Star watches replaced the original 52 family of movements with the 72xx or 77xx automatic movement calibres just four years, adding the V2-signed dials.  In line with 1970s watch technology, the hacking Citizen 7xxx series movements operate at 21,600 bph rather than 18,000.  The 72xx had more than 20 variants, giving us much to choose from, thankfully.
 
Vintage Citizen watches are a little like discovering watches all over again.  There’s much to learn - unlike vintage Seiko, Citizen has its own ecosystem and a (lot) less rabid following, and it’s quite under the radar (at least for now).
 
This Citizen Seven Star comes on a stainless-steel Bambi bracelet, and with nylon strap, rugged travel case, and springbar tool.