co. industry watch and clockmaking predecessor j. bulova company founded new york city u.s. 1875 1875 founder joseph bulova headquarters new york city new york united states area served worldwide key people jeffrey cohen president john wille chief operating officer products bulova bulova accu swiss caravelle new york wittnauer clocks revenue us 164 million 2013 1 parent citizen watch co. website bulova.com bulova is a manufacturer of watches and clocks . its headquarters is located in new york city . 2 bulova s swiss made line is known as bulova accu swiss or formerly bulova accutron . it is owned by citizen watch co. contents 1 history 2 accutron 3 space 4 present day 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit bulova ambassador automatic bulova was founded and incorporated as the j. bulova company in 1875 by joseph bulova 1851 november 18 1936 3 an immigrant from bohemia . it was reincorporated under the name bulova watch company in 1923 and became part of the loews corporation in 1979 4 and sold to citizen at the end of 2007 . 5 in 1912 he launched his first plant dedicated entirely to the production of watches . manufacturing watches at their factory in biel switzerland bulova began a standardized mass production never seen in the world of watchmaking until then . in 1919 joseph bulova offered the first complete range of watches for men . the iconic visual style of his first popular advertising made its watches popular with the american public . but beyond the original style precision and technological research also became an endless quest for bulova . in 1927 he set up an observatory on the roof of a skyscraper located at 580 5th avenue to make measurements that would enable him to determine very precisely universal time . bulova established its operations in woodside new york and flushing new york where it made innovations in watchmaking and developed a number of watchmaking tools . 4 its horological innovations included the accutron watch which used a resonating tuning fork as a means of regulating the time keeping function . bulova became a renowned watch company in 1923 . bulova produced the first advertisement broadcast on radio in 1926 announcing the first beep of history at the tone it s eight o clock bulova watch time an announcement heard by millions of americans . in 1927 charles a. lindbergh was the first pilot to cross the atlantic nonstop . his crossing earned him a bulova watch and a check for 1000 and it became an emblem for the brand that created the model lone eagle in his likeness . bulova claims to have been the first manufacturer to offer electric clocks beginning in 1931 but the warren telechron company began selling electric clocks in 1912 19 years prior to bulova . in the 1930s and 1940s the brand was a huge success with its rectangular plated watches whose case was strongly curved to better fit the curve of the wrist . bulova produced the world s first official television commercial on july 1 1941 before a baseball game between the brooklyn dodgers and philadelphia phillies over new york station wnbt now wnbc . the announcement for which the company paid anywhere from 4.00 to 9.00 reports vary displayed a wnbt test pattern modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time . the bulova logo with the phrase bulova watch time was shown in the lower right hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute . 6 7 at one time in the 1940s bulova made a few examples of their complex four sided five dial per side sports timer game clock 8 for use in nhl pro ice hockey games and for the nascent nba pro basketball league of that time used for indoor sports arenas such as boston garden chicago stadium and the detroit olympia through to the last example being taken out of service in chicago in 1976 all replaced by digital display game timepieces . 9 the joseph bulova school of watchmaking was founded in 1945 by arde bulova chairman of the board initially to provide training for disabled veterans after the second world war . the school later became a full fledged rehabilitation facility an advocate for disabled people nationwide and one of the founders of wheelchair sports in america . the school closed in 1993 . in 1967 bulova bought the manufacture des montres universal perret fr res sa at geneva and sold it in december 1977 . the factory in biel was closed in 1983 . accutron edit this section needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . march 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message accutron movement . the tuning fork is between the two electromagnetic coils at the top of the watch which drive it . dial side time is set on the back no crown woman working on a watch at the company in 1937 . bulova s accutron 10 watches first sold in october 1960 11 use a 360 hertz tuning fork instead of a balance wheel as the timekeeping element . 12 the inventor max hetzel was born in basel switzerland and joined the bulova watch company of bienne switzerland in 1948 . 12 the tuning fork was powered by a one transistor electronic oscillator circuit so the accutron qualifies as the first electronic watch . instead of the ticking sound made by mechanical watches the accutron had a faint high pitch hum which came from the vibrating tuning fork . a forerunner of modern quartz watches which also keep time with a vibrating resonator the accutron was guaranteed to be accurate to a minute per month or 2 seconds per day considerably better than mechanical watches of the time . 12 the tuning fork movement was a horological revolution . previously electronically regulated timepieces were limited to some scientific instruments being too large for a personal watch . the accutron was also the first wristwatch precise enough to qualify for u.s. railroad certification . a wristwatch regularly moves in all possible directions as opposed to a pocket watch which spends the vast majority of its life either mostly vertical or mostly horizontal . prior to the accutron that movement affected the precision of all wristwatches to a degree which precluded railroad certification even for the best made and most expensive chronometer certified wristwatches . the ability to legitimately claim the accutron as the most precise wristwatch in existence was a tremendous boon for the company . unfortunately for bulova in 1969 the seiko astron the first mass produced quartz movement watch hit store shelves . because the quartz movement wristwatch was easier and cheaper to manufacture seiko was able to sell watches more precise 15 seconds per month than accutron at a much lower cost . bulova began the 17 year manufacture of the tuning fork accutron with its round 214 movement in 1960 which departed from typical wristwatch design in that there was no setting stem and crown on the side of the watch . instead the stem and crown were placed on the back of the case . while used mainly in men s wristwatches they also manufactured a number of different desk clocks using the 214 movement . in 1965 they introduced the 218 movement with a setting stem and crown at the 4 o clock position rather than the more traditional wristwatch placement at 3 o clock . later iterations of the 218 movement placed the stem and crown at 3 o clock as did the 219 221 224 and 230 . in 1972 came the 219 and in 1973 the accuquartz 224 . all of these are full sized movements ranging from 28.7 to 29.7 mm in diameter and were used in men s watches . the timekeeping in the 224 was actually regulated by a quartz crystal but it still incorporated a tuning fork as the source of motive power for the gear train . for women s watches they introduced the smaller round 19.4 mm 230 movement there was also a 23.5 mm version in 1970 and the basically rectangular 19.4 by 17.4 mm 2210 in 1973 . both the 221 and the 230 were also used in some men s watches . the photos to the left depict top photo the back of a 218 movement and bottom photo the front of a 214 movement which is shown in a spaceview accutron and was perhaps the first mass produced visible movement wristwatch . ironically the spaceview was never intended to be sold by bulova . it was a salesman s demonstration tool and a display model for jewelers . while bulova used a solid gold spaceview in an intensive advertising campaign for the new accutron they only expected to sell a few hundred strictly to distributing jewelers for use as a merchandising display ; however many customers seeing the watch in the window wished to purchase it . realizing that there was a consumer demand bulova started manufacturing kits which allowed jewelers to convert normal 214s came up with the name spaceview and started manufacturing them in stainless steel and gold filled for retail sale . they later also made gold electroplated versions . the popularity of the spaceview today is second only to that of the 214 astronaut . bulova made its last tuning fork movement wristwatches in 1977 . that year they also started making quartz watches . subsequently all of bulova s electronic watches used quartz movements although they kept selling them under the accutron label . this can lead to confusion on the part of persons seeking to obtain a real accutron . in order to avoid paying a tuning fork price for an accutron with a quartz movement the date code must be checked except for 214s 218s with a 4 o clock stem and crown 218 travelers 218 astronaut iis and 218 deep seas all of which are easily recognizable . located on the back of the case it consists of a letter followed by a number . the letter is the decade m 1960s n 1970s and the number is the specific year within that decade . therefore an accutron with a date code that falls within m0 and n6 inclusive will have been manufactured with a tuning fork movement . most with a code of n7 will also but it is necessary to open the back and view the movement to be absolutely certain . note an alternate method of determining if the movement is tuning fork or quartz requires that the movement is running and has a seconds hand some ladies movements do not . the seconds hand of the tuning fork movement will smoothly sweep around the dial whereas the quartz movement will tick the seconds . an accutron with a 224 movement which should be labeled accuquartz on its dial is a hybrid movement with its timekeeping actually regulated by a quartz crystal rather than by the tuning fork itself . many consider these to be collectible because they were only made for 5 years resulting in a low total production number and corresponding rarity today . when bulova ceased tuning fork movement production in 1977 they also stopped making components ; however recently manufactured accutrons still came in for repair . it did not take long for them to run out of parts and they started replacing tuning fork movements with quartz movements . more than 4 million tuning fork accutrons were sold by the time production stopped in 1977 . space edit in the 1960s the company was involved in a notable space age rivalry with omega watches to be selected as the first watch on the moon .