Accutron Spaceview History

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Genesis:
At the end of 1959, in anticipation of the launch of a revolutionary new line of watches called Accutron, Bulova designers and craftsmen created tooling that reverse-printed white dial markings on new Accutron crystals. The printed crystals carried all of the information that would normally be found on an Accutron dial. That allowed Bulova to remove the dial from models of the new watches, and install a printed crystal, thus exposing the tuning fork and the green colored circuitry inside. Because ordinary plated hands didn't provide enough contrast against the movement to be easily seen from a distance, Bulova used white painted luminous hands as replacements. The converted watches were only intended to be used as sales aids in order to showcase the revolutionary Accutron tuning fork movement. For internal reference, the new movements' caliber was desegnated as the 214.

Accutron was introduced to the public in October of 1960. Conversion kits and display watches were made available for Bulova dealers to showcase, and explain how the breakthrough technology worked. The marketing group at Bulova correctly decided that top-of-the-line cases would convey a sense of enduring quality to the upstart Accutron technology. To that end, Bulova converted two 14 kt. gold models and used them in a major magazine and newspaper advertising campaign. The idea was to create excitement around Accutrons ordinary looking dial models by giving the public a glimpse at the technology inside, and to link the development program which created Accutron to the US space program. The advertising worked brilliantly.

The plan was to convert enough 214's for distribution to dealers and it is widely believed that Bulova expected to sell at most, a few thousand of the converted "display watches" as sales aids to their dealers. That was the plan, but the public had other ideas.

Can I buy the one in the window?
    Perhaps because of its' uniqueness, potential customers who thought that the watch in the jeweler’s window was a standard model started asking to buy one. Dealers who didn't want to lose a sale were happy to sell the "Display Model" and the strangely attractive watch started selling like hotcakes. Soon, due to popular demand, dealers everywhere clamored for quantities of the new best-seller.  In 1961 Bulova scrambled to keep up with the demand for the expensive new toys and they were hard pressed to come up with enough of the 14kt. gold cases.

The marketing people at Bulova soon realized that they had a hot commodity on their hands. In response, Bulova started selling pre-converted watches and it wasn't long before several new models were born. Whereas the first Spaceview crystal was created to replace a dial, the new Spaceviews would have a built-in, metal minute scale (chapter ring) and the crystal would be imprinted with only the Accutron name and tuning fork logo.

The first of these new models in stainless steel came out (I believe) at the end of 1962. By 1963 they flew out of Bulova factories and sales of the more expensive solid gold models decreased. Soon, other stainless steel and gold-filled chapter ring models were produced, and eventually, the entire skeletonized group became known as Spaceviews.

It must be said here that the great majority of Accutrons sold world-wide during the 17 years that the 214 was manufactured were basic dial models. Very few of the 14 kt gold Alpha and Scalloped Lug models were sold after 1965. The last 214 was made in 1977. 

Popular Spaceview Conversions

Original Spaceview crystals were available from Bulova as replacement parts until around 1992. Dealers continued to use the original Spaceview conversion parts for any case that would accept the dotted crystals but at that time they were not considered to be as desirable as the chapter ring models so the demand for conversions wasn't anywhere near what it is today. An ordinary dial bezel is not machined for and will not accept a chapter ring under the crystal, so it isn't possible to convert a dial model into a factory correct chapter ring Spaceview. This means that any correct chapter ring model is "factory original".

For non-chapter ring models, the conversion process is very simple. Providing that the customers' watch accepted one of the few sizes of Spaceview crystals which were available at that time, dealers removed the dial and installed a spacer ring to fill the void left by the dial's absence. White painted Spaceview hands were installed, and the Spaceview crystal was installed on the bezel. The entire process takes just a few minutes and was often done while the customer waited.

Because of the popularity and added value of Spaceview models, brand new crystals that fit non-Spaceview models are available with Accutron markings. These Spaceview crystal sizes were never made by Bulova and therefore were not available in the sixties and seventies so they couldn't have been converted at the time of sale.

Relatively few 214 case styles were sold as Spaceview models by Bulova during the 60's and 70's. Among all of the newly converted Spaceviews, some are very attractive, and they are affordable enough to have become popular with many of today's 214 buyers. 

ACCUTRON SPACEVIEW CRYSTALS

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