Made to celebrate the 100 year anniversary
Dear all. Thank you for your help and advice. Its been a bit of a journey to reach this point - if I may explain.
3 of the watches in my Fathers collection did not work. I tried to find a local watch repairer to work on them but they all said they did not have the experience to repair them. So I rang and emailed Bulova USA. Their eventual reply was " I'm sorry to say that parts for the tuning fork models of Accutron are no longer available, the only type of repair we are performing is installing a quartz movement into the the casing"!
The watches are special to me, I can remember as a child my Father wearing them and even going to the Bulova dealers shop. In particular my Father had said about the Anniversary watch "It was a special watch - only 100 were made to celebrate Bulova's 100 year anniversary, and sold to selective dealers to advertise and promote Bulova". He had a good relationship with the dealer who rang him and he bought it.
I did not want to spoil these watches by putting new movements in them and eventually, with research found a watch repairer who specialised in Bulova who repaired and serviced the 3 watches, but they could not give me any further information. This brought me to your forum - which is fantastic to have a wealth on knowledge available. Thank you all.
In reply to Glad we could help Dune, and by OldTicker
Lol
Unfortunately I've already caught it. While the 3 were being repaired I bought some other Bulova watches. Now I know the format to post onto the forum they will follow. Do you know where I can buy a device to remove the case and the procedures to follow as I do not want to damage anything?
Regards
Dune,
I am glad you found a person to service your Accutrons. No small feat. As to what the dealer told your father, at Watch Talk Forum - Bulova and Accutron sub forum - we have found, without a doubt, many dealers in the past really didn't know what they were talking about. Some may have even spread incorrect information knowingly. There have been many "myths" perpetrated by so called dealers. The passage of time and lack of good records and information from Bulova, itself, hasn't helped. Yes, Bulova stopped supporting these wonderful watches many years ago. The factory, and even some dealers, substituted quartz mvts. without even telling the customer they were going to do so. I personally know of someone that happened to. Since last year, I have been using and recommending a person in Bulgaria to service Accutrons. He has the parts and equipment to service all six calibers of tuning fork Accutron mvts. As well, he has serviced and sold more than 3,000 Accutrons.
Dune,
I am sorry I didn't look carefully at the mvt. in the pic you posted. Bad news. Your original 224 Accuquartz mvt. has been removed and a 218 mvt. installed in its place. Was that done by the person you had service your watch or some other time in the past? Many Accutron service folks will not touch anything other than 214 or 218 mvts. Some only service 214 mvts. The switch is easy since the 224 mvt. was derived form the 218 and both will fit in the same case. Only the dial, hands and Day/Date wheels need be switched. It will run and sound the same and only someone who really knew the difference cold tell by looking at the mvt.
I was kind of suspicious of the movement info change when it was taken to the jeweler and the info was updated, but the new pictures clearly show the 2182F stamp by the date code.
I thought that I had read somewhere that the 224 series movement was the first "Quartz" movement for Bulova in late 1973 and it would make no sense for them to use the old technology in a Anniversary model with the "Quartz" symbol on the dial...I could see using the 214 in the 100th Spaceview.
Do we know what date Bulova came out with this 2182F movement? On his website, Dr Ranfft uses a N3 verison as his example for his 2182F entry.
