Bulova 1950 Academy Award

The Academy have always been very protective over their naming rights and have had many legal battles with people exploiting it, even to the extent of one such case against someone making Oscar shaped Chocolates, who they sued....madness! However in 1949 they licensed, for 4 years, Bulova to produce an exclusive line of watches which could be marketed under their name starting from 1950 to 1954, this was to cost Bulova $154,000 to use just the name and emblems associated with the Awards and nothing else.... Just a year later when Bulova tried to stretch their rights by advertising the watch as an "Award Winning Design" The Academy sued them with "perpertrating a fraud" arguing that Oscar's symbolic value had been diminished because people would assume that Bulova had earned an Oscar for "best watch design". The Academy aligned with the Federal Trade Commission to break its contract with the company two years early, making this a very scarce item, popular with watch collectors and film memorabilia collectors alike. Many Academy models have ribbed dials and cases. They are always 21j, they are always dated to 1950-1951 with little variattion. The mens watches in original boxes, such as this one have been known to reach $2500 at auction.