Citizen Throws Everything at This New Series 8 GMT

How many unusual materials can one watch carry before they start cancelling each other out? Citizen is testing that with the NB6092-01E. It has a Damascus steel middle case, a forged carbon dial, yellow gold plating and a brown bezel insert. Holy smokes.

The case is the familiar Series 8 GMT shape, an angular tonneau 41mm wide and 13.5mm thick. It wears bigger than those numbers suggest. Damascus steel makes up the middle case and the two mid-links that meet the strap, so the grain runs along the flanks as well as between the lugs. The rest is plated in yellow gold. The 24-hour bezel turns both ways and has a glass-like (maybe sapphire?) black and brown insert. There’s sapphire crystal front and back, 100 meters of water resistance, and a crown that doesn’t screw down. Because Damascus is folded by hand, every case will look slightly different.

The dial is made out of forged carbon, the chopped-fibre material you’ve seen on supercars and on far pricier watches from Hublot and Audemars Piguet. Its pattern also changes from one watch to the next. Hands and applied markers are gold-coloured, and all of them are filled with lume. On its own it’s a decent dial. Next to the Damascus it competes for attention, and two random patterns on one watch is one too many.

Inside is Citizen’s calibre 9054, made in-house by Miyota. It beats at 28,800bph, stores 50 hours of reserve, hacks and has a the at 3. The local hour hand jumps independently in one-hour steps, which is a traveller-style GMT setup that's for some reason still relatively uncommon under $3,000. Citizen rates it at -10/+20 seconds a day, which is a bit too loose. This version drops the integrated bracelet for black leather with a gold-coloured folding clasp.

The new Citizen Series 8 Gmt Damascus is limited to 1,300 pieces and priced at €1,495. See more on the Citizen website.