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Accutron, Training Movement , #35, 1960
Category: technical (training) sample
Description: Accutron movement with specific nickel plated, brass main plate. Back of the main plate engraved with ‘Accutron’ at ’12’, ‘Training Movement 35’ at ‘6’, as well as the caliber number ‘214’ and ‘Bulova USA’. Green plastic support for the circuitry, the coils and the battery. Centrally located tuning fork. Later ‘Space View’ hands. Fixed handling stem.
Dimensions: 29mm (diameter, without handling Stem), Thickness of main plate: 4.7mm
Movement: Accutron cal.: 214, #35
Additional info: Upon introduction of the new Accutron movement, which is completely different than a conventional mechanical movement, there was the necessity to train watchmakers to service and repair the system. For the purpose of training, very few specific training movements, such as this one, were issued. This is one of the earliest known pieces with number 35, about 4-5 others are known, but the numbering on the back of the main plate does not seem to exceed 300.
The main plate itself is thicker than the actual ‘Accutron‘ movement mounted into wrist watches, so this movement can not be used in a wrist watch. In addition the handling stem is permanently attached to the pillar plate (1).
Other known numbers are: 50, 189, 289, one other where the number is not disclosed. About what the number is indicating one can only speculate. It might be needed to keep track of the distributed pieces, it is rather unlikely that the numbers are attributing the movement to specific students, as these were not apprentice pieces. At the beginning well trained watchmakers were exposed to this new technology.
There are very few ‘Accutron’ watches with attributions to Swiss watchmaking schools, where the school name is stamped on the crystal, but these are dated towards the mid 1960s. Moreover, it was the students choice to work on such movement. Movements of latter school watches do not differ from the commercialised versions.
Ref.:
Electric Watch Prototypes 