Horological Meandering

G99
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MPT- Accutrons/Tuning Forks

in this thread i think, as well as the original Bulova Accutron we can include brands like Omega that used the licenced movement. i think you'll be surprised that there are more brands than you might first have thought. at one stage i owned over 40 tuning forks from brands ranging from Baume et Mercier to Zenith so lets see what you've got.

firstly a bit of history.

Bulova first released the Accutron (the name is an amalgum of accurate and electronic) in 1960 with their 214 calibre movement recognised by the fact that there is no crown and no date on any of the models. the time setting wheel is on the rear of the case.

they made the 214 through until late 1969 when they then released the 218 calibre with crown at 4 oclock and the facility for day and date. this movement was licenced to ESA to use on various swiss brands, the first of which was Omega who bought out their first model in 1972.

Bulova eventually stopped making the Accutron in 1977/78 due to the quartz revolution. a superb design that could have been the equivalent of quartz if that hadnt been invented.

all Bulovas from 1950-1979 are very easy to date as they use a code. L0 is 1950, L5=1955, M0=1960 etc. usually found on the caseback, but sometimes on the inside of the caseback.

to give an example of how good the accutron was, it was used in the Apollo command and landing modules. this 'clock' was in fact just a 214 calibre battery operated module with added 999 day flight timer using a basic rotating disc digital display with reset buttons at the top of the module. i'd never seen one in all my years of collecting until about a month ago when i saw one on ebay dating from 1969 complete with Nasa issue numbers on the back. the price too hot for me, but it would have been perfect for any NASA freak.

a similar module, but mains operated was used in Concordes flight deck and unlike the Nasa model, to my knowledge Concordes never went broke down

i only have 2 examples left now. the first is from 1960 and is a 14ct gold 'Alpha' model. it is in original condition with a quite distinctive dial on it that was only used twice in the whole history, the first production run and the last production run in 1969. that would make me think, quite correctly, that this example is from the first 1960 production run and therefore worth keeping. 

the second is a Spaceview from 1962. if you look on ebay etc you will see hundreds of spaceviews for sale, but you have to be careful as most of them are conversions for the simple reason that Spaceviews sell for more. there is a great Australian website dedicated to the Accutron and that lists every case number of every original spaceview, perhaps 150-200 in total. my case number (found on the inside of the caseback) is listed on the site so i'm a happy man.

at this stage i'm not going to bore you with bad old pics of most of the ones i used to own, i'm hoping that other owners will show them so lets all keep Andrew happy and show us your hummers.

enjoy

Graham