Messages: 26002 Location: Australia
Registered: November 2003
A short photo essay featuring some favourite Accutron watches...>
Thu, 07 August 2008 10:45
This 1967 Accutron 218 remains my favourite. It was the first Accutron I acquired and the simple styling appeals to me. The tuning fork seconds hand is a nice touch. I always have a hankering to photographically link Accutrons with musical instruments due to their humming!
Here's an example of an Accutron cal. 2182 movement (from Rob B's collection).
My first 214, an asymmetric from 1967 with florentined bezel. Many of these assymetrics have fallen prey to become Spaceview conversions. I like them as they were meant to be.
Below is an example of an Accutron cal. 214 movement (from Rob B's collection).
I had had my eye on a particular blue-dialed style of 218 that I had seen, (and just missed out on), earlier. Sure enough, if you look long enough you get lucky, and I found another example of the same style from 1970 on offer at auction as shown below. This colourful dial is enjoyable to photograph.
Here's another style that I had been looking for for sometime. Another 218 from 1970. The bright red seconds hand makes a great focal point, especially in motion due to the smoothness of the indexing on these watches.
This one is a bit different, a 1974 Accuquartz cal. 224, Bulova's melding of a tuning fork movement under control of a quartz oscillator. It was a short-lived concept giving way to pure quartz movements after a couple of years.
Of tuning fork watches that I don't own but have had the pleasure of seeing, these took my fancy.
This 1970 blue-dialed 218 owned by Rob B struck me as a great design.
Here's a very nice 1970's Zenith XL-Tronic owned by TomG. It has a great chunky styling and of course the very nice ESA cal. 9162 tuning fork movement. I wouldn't mind one of these, or one of the many other nice examples from a variety of brands that used these movements.
I find this 1969 up-down date 218, also owned by Rob B, to be a very interesting watch. It's quite uncommon also, with a green 'hammertone'-type painted dial I haven't seen before or since.
- Paul Delury