This watch was one of a few passed on to me as the result of  a friend passing.  Sad way to get something I suppose, but he knew I was into watches, so here we are.  Quite obvious that he rarely if ever wore it, as I know his daily beater was a relatively rare Heuer Camaro 7743, so the settings were all over the place and being a solar EcoDrive model and stuck in a drawer for years, I wondered if it would even work.

But not being worn it’s actually in pretty fair condition and is the Citizen Eco-Drive Minute Repeater Calibre 9000 model.  This model had quite a few complications, so interesting to see how I get on with it.  Although not a collector, like me, he was like me, in that I do have a few complicated watches and within a very short time scale, lose interest in them – basically too old for novelties and the eyesight not as good anyway, so busy dials don’t do it for me anymore.

And that’s the problem with these multi-feature watches. Unless it’s your daily beater, you soon forget how it works, the instructions are long gone and so is the inclination to wear it.

Fortunately, the instructions for most Citizen Watches are online somewhere and whilst my benefactor wasn’t into computers and no booklet was with it, I duly downloaded one, because it certainly seemed tricky.

Now, whether I wear it myself is open to question, but who knows – if I can get it up and running, I might well give it a try.  However, it’s one of those busy dial watches, not my preference these days – though in saying that, I do have a lovely old Citizen Skyhawk AT EcoDrive with probably the BEST busy dial ever which is also one of the easiest watches to read.

But I see it has got nice large hour and minute hands, good lume, so maybe the basics are enough for me – I note too it has a pointer Date indication, so I’ll just have to see how I get on.

Very fortunate I did get the instructions, because I had to do a full reset on the various hands and sub-dial indications, before it even considered letting me set or adjust anything. But, after a bit of fiddling around, I got there in the end.

Powered it up in the light and hey presto it works pretty well I have to admit.  I even got another leather strap for it as the one on it was both the wrong size and obviously from a very much older watch at some point.

A fair sized watch at 45mm including the crown, though it’s general shape allows it to sit on the wrist very neatly indeed, with nicely curving lugs and a very smooth case finish.

In it’s day this was a very complicated watch, though I’m unsure of the date as it also has a set of chimes for all sorts of things, Alarms, the Minute Repeater function and so on, though not much use for me as my Wife says I never hear them – and as I have a few Chimers around the place it annoys her no end – Ha! One of life’s little pleasures!

So a complicated Citizen Eco from a good few years ago and I have to say, I rather like it, so I will wear it now and again, but for me, a little busier than I like at the end of the day and probably wasted on me – but I was left it, so for now I keep it and remember the man who left it for me.

Sad to think it’s been nearly 25 years since we talked and over 50 years since we were together – but it brings back memories of better times and that’s a comfort.

Note – This Post revised and added to in 2021.