The Accutron line of watches from Bulova has, for many years, been the victim of an identity crisis, born of its own success. The seeds of its struggle were planted early, because what does a superstar do when it is supplanted by successor and left in the dustbin of obsolescence? It reinvents itself, sometimes successfully, but rarely ever does it do it again and again. Born in October of 1960, the revolutionary turning fork timepiece, following years of development, refinement and engineering, hailed at the time as the most accurate wristwatch ever made (or for that matter, the most accurate timekeeping device of any kind). It held the absolute spotlight in the watch world for about ten years, unequalled in its uniqueness, desirability and timekeeping ability. It was the major stepping stone between mechanical watches and quartz, until it was surpassed by the very watch it paved the way for.
Hoping to cash in on the tremendous brand value it had created as a higher-end Bulova watch, it made the transition to quartz, the latest and greatest thing in watches, but this time around it found itself in a sea of competitors offering the same technology, and in time, quartz went from being very expensive to very cheap. Everything from Timex to Rolex had a quartz model and the once-fabled Accutron was suddenly awash in very inexpensive, unremarkable watches that could all lay claim to the same level of accuracy. As the industry made the switch and prices fell, there wasn’t much to differentiate the Accutron brand it’s own parent, Bulova, much less watches from Timex, the low price leader of the time. Accutron’s first attempt to reinvent itself, after a relatively short life of 17 years, was judged by many horologists as a failure.
The second attempt didn’t do much better when Bulova decided to relaunch Accutron again the late 1980’s with a new marketing push and new product. This new line of Accutron watches were Swiss made, of higher quality than standard Bulova watches, and featured elegant and unique case designs and an impressive 25 year warranty, probably a first in the industry. My own personal Accutron “Empire” watch, the flagship of that new series, continues to run to this day whenever I pop a fresh battery into it. Still featuring a standard quartz movements, Bulova tried to tie the quartz to the tuning fork movements of the past by highlighting the design of the quartz crystal that vibrated within it, and while they were classy in design and of quality in construction, it wasn’t enough to reclaim Accutron as something unique and special among the watches of the time. Accutron continued to lose brand equity and and just couldn’t distinguish itself from the mainstream Bulova and low price sibling Caravelle.
By the time the 21st century rolled around, the Swiss watch industry had pushed back and mechanical watches, which the original Accutron had been designed to render obsolete, returned stronger than ever. Along the way many lesser known brands had been pushed out by the quartz crisis while others, some with long and illustrious histories, were bought out and swallowed whole by the Swiss watch industries. Those that remained built upon the public’s renewed interest in these mechanical marvels, growing the Swiss watch industry to epic proportions and largely (but now completely) leaving the quartz market to Japanese makers like Seiko and Citizen. Bulova decided it was time to reinvent Accutron for a third time, by choosing to straddle this market and moving the Accutron brand even higher into mechanical watches, while the Bulova and Caravelle line would defend their market share in the quartz arena.
While this had the effect of giving Accutron a reputation as a higher-end Bulova of quality construction and with a Swiss pedigree, it was an anathema for many watch purists who hated to see the Accutron name applied to a mechanical watch of any kind…after all, the name came from “Accuracy through Electronics” when it was born, and the Accutron had been designed specifically to supplant the kind of watches that its name was now to be associated with. Still, Accutron enjoyed some level of success with these watches and it allowed many consumers to enter the realm of Swiss, mechanical watches at a favorable price point, especially when these watches could often be found deeply discounted on the web.
By the time, 2010 rolled around, Bulova had been bought and was owned by the Citizen Watch Company for a few years already, with the intent to be an independent company functioning within the Citizen stable. It was during that year that Bulova launched an entirely new line of wristwatches, the Precisionist, which featured a unique kind of movement that was a kind of super accurate quartz and which used unique, proprietary engineering to produce accuracy to within seconds a year. Of most interest to watch fans, the movement featured, for the first time in a relatively affordable watch, a second hand that flowed smoothly along, much more so than any mechanical wristwatch could achieve, and which immediately recalled the original tuning fork Accutrons and their “smooth as a satellite in orbit” second hand. For many, it combined the technological superiority of the quartz with the aesthetic beauty of a hi-beat mechanical movement. Only Seiko had anything similar and it was vastly different and far more expensive.
The one-beat-per-second, hacking second hand has always been a telltale sign of a quartz watch, and to be honest, many watch snobs whose eye might be drawn to a strikingly designed watch will frequently lose interest when they see that hacking seconds hand. What was, for a few years of the 70’s and 80’s, seen to be a remarkable attribute in a wristwatch, and a sign of status, was now a badge of shame for most watches. Precisionist helped to change that, and it was definitely the most interesting watch introduced that decade, but it was a hugely wasted marketing opportunity as the Accutron line would have been a far more suitable vehicle to launch this new movement from, possibly even recapturing much of the shine that had worn off over the years of trial and error. Much money was spent developing a new line within the Bulova range of watches for Precisionist and marketing the new product when it already had the perfect name that spoke of “Accuracy through Electronics”.
Precisionist launched to much fanfare but once the novelty had worn off, the problems, not of the movement but of the design, were easily apparent. The men’s watches were huge, even by the oversize standard of the time and most of the designs were oddly different rather than uniquely distinctive. Some of this was attributed to the need to cram a very large battery into the watch, but given that there were smaller women’s sized Precisionist movements, these could have easily been adapted into watches more mainstream in design and size. Over the next four years, Bulova would only introduce a handful of new designs to the line and as of 2020, it consists of one design line still being produced virtually unchanged from the one introduced in 2010. Meanwhile, Accutron soldiered on as the Swiss arm of Bulova, making mostly mechanical and a few standard quartz watches but ironically, it brought back a totally new and updated Accutron with a tuning fork movement as a special, limited edition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Accutron. Devoted fans loved the new watch but the limited availability and extremely high price meant that only a few collectors with means would ever own one.
In January 2013, Bulova named Gregory Thumm as President of the company. Thumm had enjoyed a successful career in the watch industry, having worked for companies like the mammoth Fossil Watch among others. He was also unique in that he happened to be a certified watchmaker and could speak with full knowledge to those that actually design and craft wristwatches. Many observers thought he would be perfect to lead the company with his background and possibly help it to recapture some of its mojo. During the three years he headed the company, a number of changes were made, both within Bulova and Accutron. 2014 seemed to be the big year for change, as a number of them were made that year.
First, the Accutron line more or less vanished from sight and the Bulova Accutron website was taken down. Soon thereafter, Bulova reintroduced many of the same watches and a few new ones in the collection, now rebranded as “Bulova Accu-Swiss”, which may or may not be one of the worst naming changes in the watch world. Introduced at a price range between $795-$3900, the watches featured primarily mechanical movements and higher end cases, all of Swiss provenance.
Having cleared this path, Bulova then introduced a completely new watch called the Accutron II, a complete collection of watches that featured designs loosely based on models in the original tuning fork Accutron line. These watches featured a second generation, smaller Precisionist class movement, which gave the timepieces a somewhat reduced overall footprint than the larger, clunky Precisionist line and they featured the unique gliding second hand as well. Within the collection were several sub collections including the Alpha Spaceview, Moonview, Surveyor, Snorkel and Telluride, in a variety of metal colors and dial selections.
Bulova then made a change to the Bulova font across all their watches and announced that the corporate tuning fork logo that had originated with Accutron (but in the 2000’s began to be used across the entire Bulova range) would no longer be featured on any Bulova dial other than the Accutron II series, which seemed poised to be positioned as the hereditary torch bearer for the original Accutron. A move that probably should have been made four years earlier was now underway and along with that, a press release from Bulova stated that ”
You may have noticed that we recently updated our logo, refreshing our graphics and changing our use of the tuning fork symbol to emphasize its proper place in our history. This renowned corporate icon will be featured on the dials of our new Bulova Accutron II exclusively, and will no longer appear on Bulova or Bulova Accu•Swiss dials.
A proud symbol of Bulova’s leadership in technology, the tuning fork initially signified the revolutionary tuning fork movement of Accutron, the world’s first fully electronic watch. Our new Bulova Accutron II brand, like the original Accutron, is powered by a highly accurate electronic breakthrough, the Precisionist-class quartz movement, and features a continuously sweeping floating second hand. As the logical successor to the Accutron tradition, only Bulova Accutron II will include a tuning fork on its dial, emphasizing the meaning of the symbol itself.
Soon all Bulova branded watches, as well as Precisionist watches, began to appear with the tuning fork emblem gone from view. The Accutron II watches came out in mid-2014, positioned higher than standard Bulova’s and lower than the Accu-Swiss line but it may have been too little, too late in this fourth reinvention of the Accutron brand as the opportunity to capture the magic of the name and the uniqueness of the movement when it came out in 2010 was a few years past.
Fast forward to the end of 2015 and suddenly, word came that Gregory Thumm was out as President of Bulova and a few months later a new President was named. Bulova continued to introduce a few new Accutron II series watches but then began phasing out other lines such as the Moonview, Snorkel and Telluride series. Then in 2017, with no reason given, Bulova suddenly pulled the plug on both the Accu-Swiss line and, shortly afterwards, the Accutron II line. Both disappeared from the websites and older promotional photos were removed from their social media accounts. No reason was ever given and Bulova just soldiered on as if these two lines of watches had never existed in the first place. Within a few weeks, the tuning fork Accutron emblem began appearing again on the standard Bulova range of watches with no explanation of why the policy had changed.
I finally reached out to Bulova at the time on social media to see what I could find out. Regarding the Accutron, Bulova stated “We no longer make the Accutron but are planning something for the Accutron’s 60th Anniversary in 2020, so stay tuned!”. On the tuning fork logo, Bulova stated “the reason we brought the logo back was due to popular demand”.
My thoughts on the reasons for all this are purely speculative but it seemed to point to the scenario that after having spent a lot of money on design, advertising and store displays, as well as repositioning entire lines and rebranding others, that Bulova just suddenly wanted to erase all the changes that had been made under Thumm’s tenure. Perhaps there were creative differences or other reasons. Other initiatives by Thumm seem to have disappeared without a trace as well, such as the 24 karat gold Bulova Percheron watch and the company’s association with Manchester United.
So basically, the long run of the Bulova Accutron seemed over. Having gone from a revolutionary breakthrough timepiece, to a run of the mill quartz, then to a higher end Swiss line, then a mechanical line, then back to its roots for a short period, the Accutron was unceremoniously put to rest without comment and no real reasons given. I don’t profess to be a marketing guru and everyone likes to be an armchair quarterback, but I do think there were a number of things Bulova could have done differently that might have made the Accutron a unique and relevant timepiece again.
But this isn’t intended to be analysis of what Bulova may or may not have done right or wrong along the way. Part of the cool thing about timepieces and the companies that make them is interesting stories about their history. One only has to look at the Swatch group to see what I mean. Bulova is like any other major company…they’ve made mistakes along the way but in the final analysis, they’re still here and that is more than I can say for companies like Elgin, Gruen, Benrus, Waltham and others that once made up the landscape. Moreover, I do LIKE some of the things Bulova has been doing in the last three years, like the new Joseph Bulova collection, with designs in the classic mold of fine old American watches. This keeps a tie in with Bulova but also differentiates the watch as something a bit more upscale and dressy with a beautiful line of Swiss watches that harken back to the days of Bulova’s design past).
I’m also a big fan of another thing Bulova is doing and that is the Bulova Archive Series. While there are only about five lines of watches in the collection at present, they represent models from Bulova’s heyday, including the Moonwatch, modeled after a one-off they made for Apollo Astronaut David Scott, and the Chronograph C, which Bulova made for only one year in 1970. Both use Precisionist chronograph movements and are very closely modeled after the originals. The Chronograph C is nearly indistinguishable from the original, only slightly larger. They also have come out with an automatic remake of the classic “Devil Diver” watch, the “Surfboard” chronograph and the funky 70’s “Computron”, one of the first digital LED watches ever made.
If Bulova continues to issue really cool watches from their archive series, I think they will find a receptive audience of watch lovers, especially given the competitive price point and historical touches on each.
In the meantime, 2020 has arrived and with it, one of the most turbulent years many of us can remember. Between politics and pandemics, the fate of a storied brand like Accutron may seem insignificant, unless you are a watch person and want to see a few bright points in an otherwise dismal year. Rumblings from Bulova seem to suggest that something big is on the horizon, especially with them having shown a prototype watch last year with a unique, electrostatic movement that might, for the first time, be a true reinvention of Accutron as something to aspire to, to covet and to treasure. Some design graphics for reissues of previous, famous Accutron watches have also been circulated in recent days, watches that may or may not see production. Maybe the fifth time will be the charm? Stay tuned!
This article was originally published in 2017 and has been updated for 2020.
The Measure of Time 
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