Up for sale is another of my Citizen Homer watches. Cribbing with abandon from my earlier sales post: Citizen Homer watches were issued to Japan National Railway workers in the 1960s and 1970s. They have a beautiful design, with a hacking movement and the year of issue and the train line they were issued for stamped on the back. The old national railway went through myriad changes and upheavals before finally being privatized, mostly morphing into different divisions of the Japan Rail behemoth that moves millions and millions of us every day all around the country. This means that Citizen Homer watches usually sport the names of bygone divisions of the old system, making them a lot of fun to look up and find out where on the map the watch put in its service.

This watch was issued in 1971 to the Tokyo Southern Railway division, which covered lines running between Tokyo and Shizuoka prefecture, including much of the present-day Tōkaidō line, Yokohama line, and the Yokosuka line. The stamp on the back reads:
昭 46 (shō 46, abbreviation for Year 46 of the Shōwa Era)
腕 48 (ude 48, “arm 48,” presumably the 48th udedokei [wristwatch] issued that year)
東南鉄 (tōnantetsu, abbreviation for 東京南鉄道管理局, tōkyō minami tetsudō kanrikyoku, Tokyo Southern Railway Management Bureau)

I believe Homer watches were issued to station employees rather than engineers. Train drivers, even today, tend to carry massive pocketwatches that slot into a burnished wooden holder on the control panel. The name “Homer” seems to be a Japanese coinage based on hōmu, “[station] platform” + the English “-er” which is broadly applied to English loanwords like hōmu regardless of whether they make sense in English (e.g., a guy who drinks a lot is dorankā, a “drunker”). So, the model name seems to evoke the watch’s intended use by “platformists” rather than train personnel. This is purely armchair speculation; I haven’t researched these watches as much as I’d like.

The watch has no service marks inside but seems to be running well. The 36mm case is sharp with lots of evidence of use and a couple of dents, which I tried to focus on in these photographs. The edge of the crystal has a scratch around the one index. The outdoor shots of the dial mercilessly highlight the crystal’s condition. The numbers and script on the dial are crisp and the lume on the indices and hands is a very pale greenish yellow.

You get a lot of watch for your money with these Citizen Homers. My price for this one is $259, including shipping and insurance from Japan. Please check the photos carefully; no returns unless grossly misrepresented.

My references, they are here:
https://omegaforums.net/threads/krogerfoot-is-a-perfect-seller.165946/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/krogerfoot-is-a-wonderful-seller.162509/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/excellent-purchase-from-krogerfoot.151603/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/great-seller-krogerfoot.152343/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/krogerfoot-is-a-great-seller.149917/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/krogerfoot-is-a-standup-guy.157198/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/great-transaction-with-krogerfoot.145970/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/welldeservedrest-is-an-excellent-buyer.144761/#post-1974479
https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/show/rating?userID=grace_5330

Indoor shot


Outdoor shot




National Railway pocket timetable, October 1971 (via Google Images search, not part of sale)