Vintage Bulova Watches

Originally founded as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Joseph Bulova, the company was renamed the Bulova Watch Company in 1923. In 1941, before a Dodgers Baseball game Bulova aired the first TV commercial. Citizens Holding Company purchased Bulova in 2008. The world’s largest watchmaker was born from this purchase.

Movement markings for vintage Bulova Watches have changed over the years. For about 2 decades (1924-1945) the movements had symbols such as a circle, square, triangle, etc each corresponding to a year. A number of these figures were duplicated. For the next few years from 1946 to 1948 Bulova just used the last two digits of the year. The most recent system, used since 1950, uses a letter-number combination. The letter provides the decade: L=1950s, M=1960s, N=1970s, P=1980s, T=1990s, A=2000s. The single number provides the year within the given decade. So L3 would be 1953.

The Accutron became one of the most noteworthy vintage Bulova watches. First released in 1960, because it used a single-transistor electronic oscillator it is considered the first electronic watch. This circuit runs a tuning fork which replaces the normal mechanics used for tracking time for over 300 years. Because of this novel arrangement the Accutron lacks the “ticking” time pieces for centuries. Instead you only hear tuning forks humming. The tuning forks vibrate at a rate of 360 times a second segmenting the second into 360 equal parts. Breaking each second into so many “ticks” causes the second to glide around the watch face. The vintage Accutron was discontinued in 1977 after selling over 4 million of the vintage Bulova watches.

Lone Eagle vintage Bulova watches were released in 1927 through the mid 1930s. Originally the Lone Eagle design looked similar to the Bulova Conquer having a corner-cut or octagon shape. Later designs included a Tonneau shape and a rectangle shape with stepped sides. The Lone Eagles manufactured from late 1927 used a 1927 patent while those earlier Lone Eagles have a 1924 patent. These vintage Bulova watches originally sold for about $35.

Vintage Bulova Watches