Citizen's new limited-edition titanium Attesa watches now available to buy outside Japan

Both new Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive 50th Anniversary limited-editions can now be bought outside Japan, and in one market they will arrive even before the Japanese release date.

Citizen's UK store has recently listed the CC4084-83Z "Power of Green Flash" and CC4085-81Z "Power of Purple Aurora" at 1,595 pounds each, both with new and limited-edition tags. In the US, only the Purple Aurora has shown up on the website, at $2,295, with a live add-to-cart button and delivery quoted as early as 15 September. On the other hand, Citizen Japan has the pair down for October — still a few weeks away.

The US figure is also slightly below Citizen's own projection. The company's global announcement on 9 September gave an expected US price of $2,515 for both references, $220 above what its storefront now charges.

The main difference between the pair is basically the finish; both use optical tricks instead of paint. The Green Flash has used green structural colour film beneath an inkjet-printed black dial layer. Its sapphire bezel ring has a dark green tint produced by vapor deposition — Citizen says is a first for Attesa. Radiating lines are visible beneath it as well. The bezel itself is hardened with Duratect Amber Yellow. 

The Purple Aurora uses raised printing on black — there is structural color film in the subdials that changes colors between purple and blue depending on the angle of light. Plus, it gets pink gold indices and city names, and a Duratect Pink bezel made using real gold.

American buyers get half a choice. The Green Flash isn't nowhere in Citizen's US Attesa listing, while UK customers can have either.

Each reference is capped at 1,500 pieces worldwide and uses a 44.6 mm Super Titanium case, 15.4 mm thick, with DLC treatment, dual spherical sapphire and 10 bar water resistance. Powering the watches is an Eco-Drive F950 satellite-wave GPS movement, which claims signal reception in as little as three seconds, world time, a perpetual calendar and a 1/20-second chronograph running to 24 hours.