The Tuning Fork Watch
Posted in Uncategorized on 08/11/2011 10:36 am by adminAlthough consumers today may be familiar with Accutron watches as perhaps an unremarkable, but good quality and affordable Swiss made watch, the history of the Accutron brand is very important to the history of the wristwatch in the 20th Century.
An American success story in an industry dominated by the Swiss, Bulova was founded by Joseph Bulova, then a 23 year-old immigrant to the U.S. from Bohemia in 1875. Bulova began as a jeweler and didn’t begin manufacturing timepieces until 1911, but from there quickly developed into a watch industry powerhouse.
In 1952, Bulova began to develop the Accutron. It would be,rolex Milgauss Replica, the company claims, the first real breakthrough in timekeeping technology in 300 years. Indeed,Omega Constellation replica, to that point, all watches and clocks operated on the same basic set of mechanical principles.
The Accutron watch entered production in 1960. It promised accuracy to within two seconds a day, or one minute a month. An immediate success, Accutron was the first wristwatch to be certified as “railroad approved”. To that point, railroad engineers had used approved pocket watches which had to be frequently serviced and regulated. An examination of the history of horrific train collisions in the 19th Century will convince one of the importance of accurate timekeeping in the rail business.
NASA asked Bulova to produce timing mechanisms using Accutron technology for its space program. It is said that NASA asked Bulova to delay the introduction of Accutron to the public until after the first space missions were completed to avoid turning the Soviets on to the new technology too soon. Accutron timing devices were an integral part of 46 NASA missions. Today in fact,Replica Rolex Daytona, an Accutron device still sits on the moon as part of an instrument left there by Apollo 11 astronauts.
The eventual development of the quartz watch made Accutron technology obsolete, and by the end of the 1970s, Bulova had phased them out. But if quartz technology is sometimes characterized as “soulless” by watch aficionados,TAG Heuer replica watches, the Accutron was an electronic watch with soul.
