How Much Is A Bulova Watch Worth

As you find yourself rifling through every nook and cranny of your house in honor of spring cleaning, you might find yourself wondering how much is my Bulova watch worth? Since the Bulova Watch Company's affordable watch lines made them incredibly popular during the mid-century, chances are your parents or grandparents owned one and passed it onto you. While Bulova watches weren't particularly expensive, a few specific editions can be sold in today's market for a few thousand dollars.

Joseph Bulova, a Czechoslovakian immigrant, began working at the legendary Tiffany & Co. shortly following his move to the United States in the late 19th Century. His previous apprenticeships with European jewelers allowed him to smoothly transition into the American corporate structure, and soon he was confident enough to launch his own company, J. Bulova & Co., in 1875. Unfortunately, Bulova's timepiece innovations have been overlooked in popular culture despite being one of the first timepiece companies to mass-produce wristwatches; the company was the first to debut a full collection of wristwatches for women in 1924 and the first watch brand to have a celebrity endorser (Charles Lindbergh).

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Unlike other vintage accessories, Bulova watches are relatively easy to identify. Nearly every Bulova watch has the company's name inscribed onto the top portion of their dials. However, not every single watch manufactured by Bulova features this characteristic; a few early watches from the 1920s lack the Bulova signifier on their dials. In addition, the famous Accutron watch was normally marked with its name or the tuning fork logo across the top of its dials.

Since the Bulova company produced a prolific number of affordable watches during the mid-20th century, most vintage Bulova watch values are usually not much over $50 depending on the watches' condition and the quality of the materials used to make them. However, a few Bulova watches worth anything come from a series of highly collectible Bulova watches that may sell for a significant amount of money today.

Early watches produced in the Art Deco style by the Bulova Company are normally brightly colored and feature either enamel or gemstone details. Bulova wristwatches from this period which have the highest value estimates include valuable precious gemstones and metals in their bands and faces. Watches made with 14K and 18k gold, rose gold, and white gold can be sold for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, while the enamel watches will sell for a bit less. For example, a Bulova watch with blue enamel from 1923 is currently listed for $350.

The Bulova A-11 watch was commissioned by the United States Armed Forces for use by Allied soldiers during World War II. While many different watches were distributed among Allied forces, the most iconic watch was Bulova's A-11, which came to be known as the "HACK" watch. Featuring a single-piece green band and black face, this watch is sought after by military historians, World War II fans, and watch collectors alike. A 1940s A-11 recently sold for $450 at auction.

The Bulova Academy Awards Series which was produced between 1950 and 1954, was created in partnership with the Academy of Motion Pictures. The Academy permitted Bulova to use trademarked iconography on this series of watches; however, the Academy later rescinded the agreement when Bulova began marketing the watch as having an "Award Winning Design" and sued the company for its actions. This forced Bulova to break the contract two years earlier, making this series of watches both rare and desirable for film enthusiasts and Hollywood memorabilia collectors. One such Academy Award watch from 1950 is currently being sold for $1,000 at Meierotto Jewelers.

For those who love spy novels and movies, the Bulova Accutron series is the watch for you to look out for. This specific watch employed the Accutron tuning fork, which was an electric technology that made the wristwatches significantly more accurate. Due to this accuracy, the CIA selected the Accutron to be used by their tester pilots for their Lockheed A-12 spy plane, the precursor to the iconic Blackbird. In addition, the company soon created an Accutron watch with a 24-hour hand and 24-hour bezel named the Accutron Astronaut watch. These watches performed incredibly well in high altitudes with significant g-force and were not originally created for public release. One of these Accutron Astronaut watches is currently listed for $1,695.

The Bulova Chronograph "C" watch can be identified by its eponymous blue, white, and red dial design, and is rather collectible due to it being discontinued a year after its release. The watch has a more modern design with a steel band and a large, colorful dial. A genuine "Stars and Stripes" watch from 1970 recently sold for $3,600 at auction.

Using its rich history as inspiration, Bulova launched its Archive Series to connect modern buyers to its vintage catalog. Currently, customers can purchase modern versions of old Bulova watches like the HACK watch, the "Stars and Stripes" watch, the Computron LED, and the Moon Watch. Thus, if you're dying to purchase a difficult-to-find vintage Bulova watch, you very well might see it on Bulova's shelves in the years to come. And if you're trying to sell your vintage Bulova, this Archive Series proves that there are many people who might find your vintage Bulova to be the exact wristwatch they've been looking for.

Nearly 10 years ago, Ben Clymer covered a uniquely special auction at the time. American astronaut Dave Scott's personal Bulova chronograph ref. 88510/01 was set to cross the block. But this watch had a particularly special provenance. The legend goes that during the Apollo 15 mission, the crystal on Scott's Speedmaster (the NASA-issued watch) broke, leaving him no choice but to wear his own Bulova, which he brought on board with him. It was actually quite common for NASA astronauts to bring personal watches with them, hence how Jack Swigert had his GMT-Master during Apollo 13.

The Meteorite is fashioned in grade-5 titanium with a sandblasted finish for added texture. But to my mind, it is a seemingly modest tweak that accentuates the connection to the cosmos. The speckles of the finishing of the sandblasting are (use your imagination) somewhat illustrative of the vast infinity of stars in the galaxy. Work with me here, people; I'm getting horologically emotional.

This is a movement exclusive to Bulova, which is important to note because the brand falls under the greater Citizen Watch Group umbrella. And before you sound off about watch conglomerates, hear me out. Much like the Omega Speedmaster belongs to the Swatch Group and therefore benefits from the myriad resources such a group provides (especially in the creation of movements at scale), so too does Bulova benefit from Citizen's know-how when it comes to precision watchmaking with quartz.

The NP20 features a three-pronged quartz crystal and beats with a frequency of 262 kHz. This is eight times greater than your standard-fare quartz, and the result is an accuracy of mere seconds per year. And to be honest, this is a critically underrated fact about this watch when you consider what it wants to represent: a historical homage piece and a fundamentally accurate tool watch.

Swinging back to the Omega-sized elephant in the room, we need only look to the X-33 to see that quartz is, and was, the easy decision when it came to updating the Speedmaster for modern times, so it stands to reason that Bulova would draw upon a key strength from Citizen and fashion the revived Lunar Pilot with a quartz movement.

But the movement and case dimensions again speak to features common across the Lunar Pilot collection. What makes this new edition so special, in addition to the aforementioned shift in case material, is the inclusion of a meteorite dial.

As you might expect from a limited edition run of meteorite dial, what we get here are 5,000 singularly unique executions of meteorite texture due to the process it takes to create this watches. So despite the rather large number of this limited series, you can be confident in knowing that no two watches are the same in this run. That's all well and cool, but what about the execution of the meteorite?

It looks pretty darn cool for a watch that comes in less than $1,500. This is the sort of dial work you would be satisfied with in a watch with a five-figure value. And I can't say I am surprised to see that Bulova was able to integrate sandblasted titanium, a meteorite dial, and a limited run of watches and still deliver what I consider to be a real value proposition.

Now, let's get into the nuts and bolts of this one's aesthetic standouts. The triple register display and the concentric pattern on each individual subdial in black is a carryover from the standard black LP. The same goes for the hands and the marker set, but there's a real shift in the overall look in the Meteorite Edition in the way the metal surrounds blend into the grey coloration of the meteorite dial surface to make the markers and hands appear as a stark floating white. Not to get poetic and hyperbolic again, but it's as if they float atop the dial in a zero-gravity environment. But don't fret; they won't be floating away.

Perhaps the most drastic shift (aside from the literal meteorite dial) is the new execution of the tachymeter scale. On the original LP, the tachymeter is done in a gloss black texture with white printing. Here, we get something truly cool that adds contrast by way of texture. The tachy scale is now in a tone-on-tone form where the text is raised off the backdrop in a dark gray. The entire internal bezel is finished in a highly detailed pattern reminiscent of the lunar surface. It also looks killer next to the texture of the case.

Rounding things out are the same signed crown and Bulova chronograph pushers. But turn the watch over, and remove the leather NATO-style utilitarian strap, and you are met with a really neat caseback engraving. It shimmers with more sandblasted texture with the illustration of Scott on the Moon with text that harkens back to Apollo 15 and the exact number of the watch. 9d9a05e021