Snoopy in the house!
No its not ‘that’ Snoopy, this is much older and much rarer. Here it is.
It is the Citizen Independent 1481010 D400 Limited Edition Snoopy watch, dating from 1999. It has a double layered crystal, with an engraving of Snoopy operating a computer and an engraving saying “www.snoopy.co.jp..................now loading”. Uniquely the crystal engraving continues seamlessly onto the bezel.
‘Ahh......but the watch is dead’ I hear you say. Well actually this is an LED watch and operates when you push a button.
This is a real throwback to the first digital watches from the early Seventies. Instead of just red though it is multi coloured and can also show the date with a double press of the button.
It also has that old fashioned battery ‘coin’ hatch on the caseback.
Why did Citizen produce the watch, the technology is clearly inferior to LCD watches? The battery can drain quickly on these LED watches, though this one is said to be good for two years normal use. Well this Independent range was issued only in Japan and was about producing funky unusual watches a mile away from a traditional analogue.
Why did I buy it? Well it is unusual and rare, which I like, I didn’t possess an LED watch and the watch was much larger than the first LED’s. Also, strangely, I found the design quite attractive for some reason it has something like a Fifties sci-fi USA TV about it. Also the bracelet had all its links, which is important with these Japan issued watches, quite often a sized bracelet is too small for Western wrists.
The watch is 42 mm wide and a mighty 62 mm long including the first fixed link making it an extension of the case. This is the exact size of the top of my pretty flat wrist. The bracelet is very comfortable actually, the huge first links curve down sharply and really hug the wrist. The watch is in good condition and is very ‘shiny’, hard to photograph with all the reflections of it. Also it is hard to photograph the LED screen, the numbers seem to shimmer a bit when lit. The curved crystal following the exact curve of the case makes it look like a window into the watch. The crystal is unmarked but because of the double layers is not the clearest.
As well as the time and date, it has an am and pm indicator, the watch has a ‘display’ mode, which you can activate at a push of a button and which also activates every time you push the time button, the time shows and then the ‘display’ shows for about 3 seconds before shutting off. This ‘display’ also turns on on the hour for three seconds. The actual composition of the display varies depending on the time of the day.
It flashes a red signal every ten seconds to show you it is alive. When the battery gets low the signal turns orange.
Here are a few wrist shots.
So any thoughts on this twenty year old watch, which itself is a throwback to a fifty year old watch, I like the retro look and feel of the watch, makes me want to throw some vinyl onto my turntable.
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