Bulova Accutron Spaceview 214 50th Anniversary Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Jun 18th 2010 at 12:02PM

It is hard to believe that the famous Accutron Spaceview watch collection is 50 years old. Accutron was a sub-brand by Bulova and the name chosen to sit on the classic nerd watch. There were many Spaceview timepieces over the line's lifetime, but each shared the same type of movement technology as well as open dial. Bulova and Accutron are now owned by Citizen watches of Japan. As a 50th anniversary collection, Bulova Accutron is releasing a limited edition set of 1000 pieces of the iconic Spaceview 214 watch. The pieces will share the proportions and style of the original, but with a hand assembled movement, high-grade steel case, domed sapphire crystal, and alligator strap.

Spaceview watches have electronic movements that were precursors to quartz movements called "tuning fork" movements. Unlike quartz movements, I believe that turning fork movements used a sweeping seconds (as opposed to ticking) hand like mechanical movements. Though the movements are battery powered. Consumers were wowed by the "cool factors" of the Spaceview back in the 1960s, and they became very popular. I first discussed Spaceview watches here. Today, there are many Spaceview watches still available on the collector's market. The pieces are recognizable by their open, mostly green movements that contain those double copper coils. Back then the circuit board style dial was modern as could be. By today's standards it has a retro look that reminds you of that transistor radio you took apart as a kid. The 1000 pieces of this Bulova Accutron Spaceview 214 reissue models are going to be hard to get, and come with a nostalgia premium going for about $4,000 a piece. Available Fall 2010.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: 214, 50, accutron, anniversary, bulova, reissue, spaceview, watch