Original NOS Bulova Accutron Spaceview Crystal, Ref. 1277SL / 1277 SL

Diameter: 29 mm

Condition: Mint NOS in original sealed package

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Bulova

Bulova was founded in 1875 by Czech immigrant Joseph Bulova.

By 1911, Joseph Bulova had set up a manufacturing business to build and sell high quality bedroom clocks, table clocks and pocket watches. The business expanded rapidly as news of these fine timepieces spread across the American marketplace.

By the following year, Joseph Bulova was able to establish his first dedicated watch manufacturing and assembly plant in Bienne, Switzerland, building only quality fully jeweled movements.

In the early years of the 20th century most watch manufacturers felt that the wristwatches never would become a popular alternative to pocket watches. But. Joseph Bulova,  began to experiment with developing watch movements that could withstand the impacts and shocks of being worn on the wrist. Amongst only a handful of manufacturers, in 1919 Bulova introduced its first line of fully jeweled men's wristwatches. As a result, the company's market share began to grow, exponentially.

Another significant Bulova milestone was reached when, in 1926, Ardé Bulova, son of the founder, offered a prize of $1,000 for the first pilot to successfully make a solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh won the prize. Bulova, already convinced of Lindbergh’s success had shipped 5,000 Lone Eagle watches to Paris, which they distributed the day after Lindbergh’s arrival.Over the next three years nearly 50,000 of these commemorative watches were sold.

Then In 1953, Bulova research scientist, Max Hetzel, working at the Bulova laboratory in Bienne, Switzerland, invented a watch that didn’t tick… it hummed. A tiny battery caused a micro tuning fork to vibrate at exactly 360 cycles per second.

However, it remained a challenge to bring this invention from the research laboratory to the production line as a commercially viable product, suitable for mass-production. This was achieved in 1960 with the Bulova Accutron, as it now was called Max Hetzel's revolutionary timekeeping breakthrough.

Never before had a mass produced wristwatch been this accurate - within one minute per month - let alone had truly done away with the spiral balance spring and escapement mechanism that ticked.

It was with this timekeeping mechanism that Bulova, the same year, entered the space race, having been invited by NASA to incorporate this new ultra accurate electronic clock, into NASA's space program computers. The Bulova Accutron was used on a total of 46 missions of the US Space Program and went on to become the White House's official Gift of State, as announced by President Lyndon B Johnson.

By 1967, Accutron clocks were the only clocks to be found onboard Air Force One.

When in 1969 Apollo 11 landed on the moon in the Sea of Tranquility, it carried with it an Accutron watch movement. This Bulova timer was left behind to control the transmission of vital data that was to form the basis of further experiments over subsequent years, One of the experiments in which the moon-based Bulova Accutron played a critical rolel was the precise measurement of the distance of the moon from the earth and the changes in that distance over time.

In 1976, Bulova moved on to introduce a complete line of Bulova Accutron Quartz movement watches for men. That same year the National Air and Space Museum was opened by the Smithsonian Institute and, one of its main features, included a replica of the NASA Skylab, was an Accutron "space alarm" clock identical to the ones mounted onboard the actual Skylab.