17 Jewels Written on the Dial

Submitted by NOVA on June 3, 2012 - 7:54am

On prior ocassions when a watch has presented with "17 Jewels" on the dial, the watch has been dismissed as a Frankenbully.  Here's one example of such a statement posted in a watch thread:

 

"I've also seen late 1950's early 1960's Water tite with 17 Jewels written on the Dial below the Bulova signature.  IMO these Dials are / were non Bulova replacements."

                                                                                      - FifhAvenueRestorations

 

Below are excerpts from a 1962 official Bulova advertisement.  The ad is a large, double-sided, fold-out brochure, directed to retailers.  It will require a large format scanner to capture the entire document.  That will be done this week, and the full ad will be provided to Stephen.  In the meantime, here are a couple of pertinent enlargements.

Note that each of the three watches bears "17 Jewels" on the dial.

Here's a close up of the first watch in the 1962 ad posted above, the Minuteman A:

Yet another replacement case / frankenbully assumption is discredited by the facts.

FifthAvenueRes…
Posted June 3, 2012 - 8:13am

Nova, big whoop. I  think this point was made in a prior thread and Your agenda here is to simply discredit what I have said in the past.  - We can go there.

Question: Do You have the source for the ad? and can You confirm the Date of the ad to 1962?

'17 Jewels' appears printed on the Dials of Watches as early as the 1940's - it is these Watches that are marked incorrectly for their era.

IMO

 

NOVA
Posted June 3, 2012 - 8:19am

Yes, I can confirm the date of the ad is 1962.  It is printed on the ad, which is completely legit.  You'll see it in full soon enough.  It came from Bruce Shawkey, as did the broadsheets that Will is giving to Stephen and which have been discussed in another thread.  Quite a few other materials from Bruce will be sent along soon.  I have originals in my possession, not copies.

My purpose in posting this thread, since you questioned it, was to disseminate factual information and to clear up prior misinformation conveyed more than once about the legitimacy of certain watches.

Yes, I posted this in another thread, but it occurred to me later that the thread was one of your watch postings, and you tend to delete the entire thread if anyone says something you don't like.  So, for the sake of the site, I have posted it in a separate thread.

I don't need to discredit your opinions, Mark.  The facts do that all by themselves.  I'm just presenting the facts as they are discovered. 

FifthAvenueRes…
Posted June 3, 2012 - 8:37am

When a source for the ad was requested I meant publication, not individual.

 

Facts, as they are discovered, have proved a lot of past notions wrong Lisa as We discover new things almost Daily.

We see this '17 Jewels' printed on Dials in the 1960's (?) era in the ad above, which by the way is a first for Me personally and stand corrected, but by no means indicates it is correct across the board.

and, as an added note has absolutely nothing to do with 'replacement Cases'

NOVA
Posted June 3, 2012 - 11:02am

As stated above, Mark, in my initial post, the ad was provided by Bulova to retailers.  Bulova is the source/publisher of the ad.  It is a fold-out, double-sided brochure on heavy card stock.  It asks retailers to check out their Bulova inventory and announces "quality timepieces for Christmas 1962".  It also advertises Bulova radios and a portable phonograph.  It is a Bulova marketing brochure. Enough said.

I think what you simply don't understand, Mark, is the difference between saying that you personally have never seen something before versus saying that you've never seen something before and, therefore, it can't be legit.  You don't state opinions as opinion, you state them as fact, and you clearly expect people to take them that way.  I have seen you tell people--including everyone on this forum, members and visitors alike--that Bulova never wrote "17 Jewels" on the dial.  You couldn't possibly have known that.  You just assumed it to be true, because you personally had never seen it.

I couldn't care less whether this is true "across the board", Mark.  We'll understand the parameters of the phenomenon as soon as those of us interested in facts--versus spouting off unsupported opinions--find them. 

For now, we know that, contrary to your past assertions, Bulova did, in fact, sometimes print "17 Jewels" on the dial.  The full scope of when they did that is unknown.  Any assertion to the contrary is wholly unsupported opinion.

DreamWeaver
Posted June 3, 2012 - 11:54am

I agree with NOVA. I have dials with 17 Jewels printed on the dials on some of these same cases and they were original and not refinsihed dials. It is obvious Bulova did print  "17 Jewels" on the dials in the late 50s early 60s around the time they started adding "23 Jewels." IMO

plainsmen
Posted June 3, 2012 - 12:00pm

Great find Lis... thanks for pointing it out.

NOVA
Posted June 3, 2012 - 1:05pm

DreamWeaver - you should post those so that examples of the "17 Jewels" on the dial will be in the database.  It's an important addition to the history that might once again get brushed aside if not recorded.

 

William Smith
Posted June 3, 2012 - 10:41pm

Yes Please post if you can DreamWeaver.  We always need examples of to go along with ads, as well as ads to back up examples.  Great work everyone on this topic.  Most times folks say always and/or never, we usually find out it really translates to "...well hardly ever, Sir Joseph"  (I"ve had that darned Gilbert and Sullivan tune going in my head since several posts ago).   Bulova throws us curves all the time.  As we get more info, we are learning to hit some while still striking out on the others.  The ads at least allow us to read some of the hand signals.  As we get more ads, our average will continue to go up, but we'll never be batting 1000....as we will never have all the ads.