From New York to the Moon: The History of Bulova Watches

Most of the stories told in these pages follow a familiar geography. Switzerland, with its alpine workshops. Japan, with its quiet precision. Paris, Milan, and London, where couturiers turned the wristwatch into an extension of the wardrobe. But there is another watchmaking tradition — one born from the restless energy of a young immigrant arriving in New York City with nothing but ambition and a jeweler's eye. This is the story of Bulova, and it begins on a street you can still walk today.

A Small Shop on Maiden Lane

In 1870, a nineteen-year-old from Bohemia — what is now the Czech Republic — stepped off a ship in Manhattan. His name was Joseph Bulova. Within five years, he had opened a small jewelry shop on Maiden Lane in Lower Manhattan, already the beating heart of New York's gem and precious metal trade. His business grew from jewelry into clocks, then pocket watches, and by 1912 he had opened a factory in Bienne, Switzerland, devoted to the mass production of wristwatch components. There, he implemented the "American Watchmaking System," applying the principles of standardisation and interchangeable parts to Swiss-style horological craft. Parts were machined to tolerances of one ten-thousandth of an inch. An American company, producing in the Swiss heartland — Bulova would eventually be called "the Henry Ford of watchmaking," and the comparison was not undeserved.

The Rubaiyat — When a Watchmaker Thought of Women First

What most histories of Bulova neglect is that some of the very first wristwatches the company produced were designed for women. As early as 1917, Bulova introduced the Rubaiyat, a line of ladies' bracelet watches named after the celebrated quatrains by the twelfth-century Persian poet and astronomer Omar Khayyam — a remarkably literary choice for a watch brand. The Rubaiyat was followed in the early 1920s by the Lady Maxim, whose advertisements bore what would become one of the most enduring symbols in American horology: the Goddess of Time, a graceful female figure that served as Bulova's logo for decades. These early advertisements did not always carry the Bulova name — only the Goddess of Time identified the maker — yet they clearly positioned the company as one that took women's wristwatches seriously when most competitors barely acknowledged them.

In 1924, Bulova released what is widely recognised as the first complete line of women's jeweled wristwatches in the United States. These were not miniaturised men's models. They were designed from the ground up as women's watches, with elegant cases, decorative bezels, and movements selected for their reliability at diminutive sizes. Omega would not release the Ladymatic until 1955. Longines was producing exquisite women's pieces in the same era, but Bulova's commitment to a full, dedicated women's catalogue was ahead of its time by a considerable margin.

The Roaring Twenties — Aviators, Airwaves, and the Birth of Modern Advertising

The 1920s were Bulova's decade of firsts.

In 1926, the company made advertising history. A voice on the radio announced: "At the tone, it's 8 o'clock, Bulova Watch Time." It was the first horological radio advertisement ever broadcast.

The following year, 1927, brought the defining marketing coup of the era. Arde Bulova, Joseph's son, had offered a prize of one thousand dollars to any pilot who could complete a nonstop transatlantic flight. When Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris on May 21st, Bulova was ready. Five thousand "Lone Eagle" commemorative watches were shipped the day after the landing and sold out in three days. Nearly fifty thousand would be sold in total.

But it is the less famous follow-up that matters more here. In 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger aboard the Fokker Friendship, though she would make the crossing solo four years later. Bulova responded by issuing the "Lady Lindy," a watch created to honour her achievement — at a time when female aviators were routinely dismissed by the press. Joseph Bulova had been centering women in his horological vision since 1917, and the Lady Lindy was a natural extension of that conviction, one that resonates with houses that would later take women's watches seriously as objects of design, from Yves Saint Laurent to Seiko in the 1970s.

The Golden Age of Bulova Cocktail Watches

If the 1920s established Bulova as an innovator, the three decades that followed cemented its reputation as a maker of some of the most desirable women's watches of the twentieth century.

The 1930s — American Art Deco on the Wrist

The 1930s saw Bulova embrace Art Deco with a distinctly American confidence. Rectangular cases in rolled gold plate — the "tank" silhouette pioneered by Cartier in Paris — were reinterpreted with bolder proportions. Ribbon bracelets in white and yellow gold plate gave these watches a fluid, almost textile quality. The Ladies' Sports Models of the early 1930s, with their striking coloured enamel bezels, are today among the rarest vintage Bulova pieces.

Each model was given an individual name — Adele, Alma, Allerton — a practice that lent every watch its own identity. Bulova also matched each watch with a presentation box that was often as extravagant as the timepiece itself: sculptural cases shaped like globes flanked by golden dolphins, miniature Christmas trees, or automobile grilles became part of the ritual of owning a Bulova.

The 1940s and 1950s — Cocktail Hour

The war years redirected Bulova's manufacturing toward military production, but as peace returned, so did the company's focus on civilian elegance — and particularly on women's watches.

The late 1940s and early 1950s produced some of the finest Bulova cocktail watches ever made. These were small, fantastically shaped mechanical timepieces in 10-karat rolled gold plate, powered by 17- and 21-jewel movements, with cases that turned geometry into jewelry. The "Academy Award" series, produced from 1950 to 1954, offered more than forty distinct variants — each with its own character, from sculptural lugs to diamond-set bezels.

The name was not decorative: in 1949, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences licensed its name and the Oscar symbol to Bulova, and the watches were given to Academy Award winners alongside being sold to the public. The Academy, short of funds at the time, used Bulova's licensing fees to pay off the mortgage on its own headquarters. These were pieces designed to catch the light at a dinner table, to be noticed on a gloved wrist at the theatre — and, for a brief few years, on the wrists of Hollywood's most celebrated actors.

There is also a quieter tradition worth noting. In mid-century America, a Bulova watch was one of the most popular graduation gifts a young woman could receive. From the late 1940s through the 1970s, countless American women wore a Bulova as their first "real" watch — a rite of passage that embedded the brand in the personal history of a generation.

The 1960s — 23 Jewels and the Peak of Refinement

By the 1960s, Bulova's women's dress watches had reached a remarkable level of sophistication. Models powered by 23-jewel manual-wind movements rivaled anything produced by the established Swiss houses. The cases grew thinner, the dials more restrained, the proportions more precise — serious mechanical objects housed in cases of real elegance.

It was also during this period, at the end of the decade, that Bulova entered into a collaboration that remains one of the best-kept secrets in vintage horology: a partnership with Christian Dior. Launched as a pilot collection during the 1968 holiday season, the first Christian Dior Collection by Bulova consisted of nine mechanical watches in 14-karat gold, both names sharing the dial.

As the partnership expanded through the 1970s under the creative direction of Marc Bohan, Dior's longest-serving artistic director, the collection grew to include more accessible gold-plated models — but the design language remained extraordinary: asymmetrical cases, vivid coloured dials in deep red, green, and chocolate brown, and a sculptural boldness that remains instantly recognisable today. These are rare, highly collectible pieces that sit at the intersection of haute couture and American mechanical watchmaking, and they are among the most treasured finds at Finchley Watches.

The Accutron, the Moon, and a Beautiful Accident

In 1960, Bulova introduced a watch that belonged to neither the mechanical nor the quartz tradition. The Accutron, developed by Swiss-born engineer Max Hetzel, was the world's first fully electronic watch, powered by a tiny vibrating tuning fork rather than a balance wheel or quartz crystal. Its most famous model, the Spaceview 214, owes its existence to an accident: a batch shipped without dials revealed the mesmerising tuning fork mechanism, and Bulova turned the error into an icon — a watch where the inner workings become the aesthetic, a concept that finds an echo in the vintage mystery dials where the movement is hidden rather than revealed. More than four million Accutrons were sold before production ceased in 1977, overtaken by the quartz revolution led in large part by Seiko. What is less well known is that Bulova produced women's Accutron models — smaller, often diamond-set, manufactured in far more limited quantities. Today, a ladies' Accutron in good condition is among the rarest prizes in the Bulova collecting world.

The Accutron's technology was also integrated into the timing instruments of forty-six NASA space missions, though the astronaut's wristwatch contract always went to Omega. That changed by accident during Apollo 15 in 1971, when Commander Dave Scott's Omega Speedmaster lost its crystal during the second moonwalk. For the third and final excursion onto the lunar surface, Scott strapped on a Bulova chronograph prototype he had brought as a personal backup. It became the only privately owned watch ever worn on the Moon — and was sold at auction in 2015 for 1.625 million dollars.

The Goddess of Time — A Symbol Across the Centuries

The Goddess of Time — that graceful female figure from the 1920s advertisements — became more than a logo. In an industry dominated by technical language, Bulova chose a poetic, feminine emblem and placed it at the center of its identity. Today, Bulova still uses the name for a current women's collection inspired by the glamour of the 1970s: petite stone dials and textured mesh bracelets. The Rubaiyat, too, has been revived — relaunched in 2017 for the centenary of the original collection, now featuring moon phase complications and diamond-set cases. The thread from 1917 to today is unbroken: women's watches were never an afterthought at Bulova. They were a founding conviction.

Collecting Vintage Bulova — What to Look For

Vintage Bulova watches offer something increasingly rare in the collector's market: genuine quality and historical significance at accessible prices. While a vintage Cartier or Omega can run into the thousands, a beautifully preserved Bulova cocktail watch from the 1950s or a 23-jewel dress watch from the 1960s can still be found for far less — though the best examples do not stay available for long.

One invaluable tool for any Bulova collector is the brand's dating system. From the 1950s onward, Bulova stamped a date code on the movement or case back: a letter for the decade (L for the 1950s, M for the 1960s, N for the 1970s) followed by a number for the year. L4 means 1954, M7 means 1967, N2 means 1972. Any seller worth trusting should be able to point you to this code.

The pieces most sought after by women collectors today tend to fall into a few categories. The Art Deco cocktail watches of the 1930s and 1940s, with their sculptural cases and warm gold tones, are the most visually striking. The 23-jewel mechanical dress watches of the 1960s offer the best combination of craftsmanship and wearability. The Dior collaboration pieces from the late 1960s and 1970s are rare, highly distinctive, and increasingly hard to find. And for those who love a story as much as a design, the women's Accutron models — with their tiny, humming tuning forks — are in a category entirely their own. Finding any of these pieces with their original presentation box is particularly rare and adds immensely to their charm — a Bulova in its sculptural case is a complete object, a small piece of mid-century American design in its own right. A note on finishes: many vintage Bulova cases are marked "10K RGP" (rolled gold plate) or "gold-filled," both indicating a thick layer of real gold far more durable than modern plating.

An American Story

Bulova's history is, in many ways, a compressed version of the American twentieth century. An immigrant arrives with nothing. He builds something from craft and ambition. The company rides the highs of the Jazz Age and the Space Age, and eventually finds itself absorbed into Citizen, the Japanese giant, in 2008.

But what endures is the work. The tiny mechanical movements that powered a generation of American women's watches. The bold asymmetry of the Dior collaboration. The otherworldly hum of an Accutron tuning fork. The fact that in 1917, a company chose to name its first women's watch after a Persian poem about the stars. You can begin your journey into vintage watches with the storied Swiss houses, the glamour of European couturiers, or the creativity of Japanese design. But if you want to understand how a single company shaped an entire national tradition of watchmaking — from Maiden Lane to the Moon — Bulova is where you start.