There are few things the watch industry loves more than an anniversary, and it’s difficult to beat a 100th anniversary for significance. 2024 marks a full century of Citizen-branded timepieces, and as an impressively packed year of celebrations continues on, the Japanese giant turns its commemorative attention to the sporty, elevated Series 8 collection. Showcasing both its movement production prowess and an impressive use of unorthodox finishes, the new (and extremely verbosely named) limited edition Citizen Series 8 880 Mechanical 100th Anniversary of the First Citizen Watch delivers one of the brand’s most technically solid, visually striking GMTs in years, with a contemporary style that looks to the future of the brand rather than its century-long history.
Like the rest of the Series 8 family, the Citizen Series 8 880 Mechanical 100th Anniversary of the First Citizen Watch begins with an integrated case design. Unlike many of the line’s softer three-hand iterations, though, this particular case profile is sharply angular, impressively layered, and handsomely muscular on the wrist. Measuring 41mm wide and 13.5mm thick, the overall form is prominent but balanced during wear, with several clever design choices that work to mitigate the perceived heft here. The first element here is the color palette – it’s subtle in most lighting conditions, but Citizen renders this case in a two-tone ion plate. Most surfaces are finished in a near-black charcoal gray, but the blocky case side extensions and the integrated central single lugs are rendered in a compelling deep midnight blue. Not only does this highlight the Series 8 880’s unique two-piece case construction, but this split-tone design breaks up the watch’s profile on the wrist and simultaneously harnesses the slimming power of darker tones. This blue and black color palette also makes its way to the glossy 24-hour bezel insert. In classic GMT fashion, this bidirectional bezel is split between midnight blue for daylight hours and black for night, with a large and easy-to-read scale in white. That said, this 24-hour scale is arguably the weak link for this case design, with a simplistic, inelegant bold serif typeface that detracts from the rest of the case’s sense of refinement. Around back, Citizen fits the watch with a sapphire display caseback and rates it for a decently sporty 100 meters of water resistance.
The real centerpiece of the Citizen Series 8 880 Mechanical 100th Anniversary of the First Citizen Watch is its dial. From oblique angles, the simple oceanic blue gradient is attractive but reserved, but in more direct light the iridescence of the mother-of-pearl dial base shines through spectacularly. The shimmering rainbow of highlights (some of which are exceedingly tough to capture on camera) this surface creates gives this particular Series 8 a suitably hefty visual punch, and combined with the surrounding blue tones the overall effect is almost dreamlike. While the dial surface itself might be exotic and complex, the overall layout is carried over from the rest of the Series 8 880 collection and remains solidly legible. The broad dauphine handset, blued arrow-tipped GMT hand, and the tapering faceted indices all offer easy reading at a glance, while the crisp white outer minutes scale (as well as the rest of the dial text) seems to float slightly above the dial surface itself. Interestingly, Citizen ion-plates the hands and indices a deep slate gray to better match the dark-coated case, which gives the overall layout an attractively cohesive feel. On the other hand, the mismatched white date wheel on the 3 o’clock date display does undercut this sense of cohesion somewhat, and a blue date wheel would have been a welcome addition.
Citizen powers the Series 8 880 Mechanical 100th Anniversary of the First Citizen Watch with the 9054 automatic GMT movement, made exclusively for Citizen by its sister company Miyota. The 9054 is still a relative newcomer to the Citizen lineup, with solidly modern specs such as a 50-hour power reserve, a 28,800 bph beat rate, and a hefty 16,000 A/m of magnetic resistance. In typical Citizen fashion, the stated accuracy here is conservative, with a rating of -10/+20 seconds per day, but there are enough anecdotal stories of this movement’s accuracy to infer that many real-world specimens perform far better. In addition, the 9054 offers the more sought-after “flyer” GMT complication, with a quick-adjust local hour hand for easy adjustments while traveling. On the aesthetic side, Citizen gives the 9054 a decent amount of decoration, with gold-filled engraved lettering and striping across both the bridges and the signed rotor.
To complete the package, the Citizen Series 8 880 Mechanical 100th Anniversary of the First Citizen Watch is paired with a case-matching integrated bracelet in two-tone ion-plated stainless steel. With a crisp, angular tapering H-link design, this bracelet complements the case’s form factor well, while the polished faceting on the deep blue center links gives the watch a set of welcome visual highlights around the wrist. Like nearly all of Citizen’s bracelets, however, this uses a pin-and-collar system to connect the links, which can make sizing adjustments tedious and time-consuming. The lack of micro-adjustment in the two-button clasp exacerbates this, leading to a variety of scenarios where the watch is either slightly too tight or too loose on many wrists.
2024 has been a year of celebrations for Citizen, but amid all the fanfare surrounding a full century of Citizen-branded timepieces, few commemorative efforts match the solid build quality, balanced proportions, and impressive visual flourishes of the limited edition Citizen Series 8 880 Mechanical 100th Anniversary of the First Citizen Watch. Only 2,200 examples of this watch will be made, and it will be available through authorized dealers in September 2024. MSRP for the Citizen Series 8 880 Mechanical 100th Anniversary of the First Citizen Watch stands at $1,995 USD as of press time. For more details, please visit the brand’s website.
