Just found my mother's 14k white gold ladies Bulova watch in original case from jeweler. Inside case is maroon velvet that state's "Bulova Fifth Avenue New York." The watch's only numerical inscriptions are on backside of watch, numbers "915537" at the bottom and "Bulova 14k" at the top. There is a diamond on top and bottom of the crystal and two smaller diamonds on either side of the two larger diamonds just mentioned.
My father purchased it for my mom's birthday in 1949. I believe he got it from an army PX while stationed somewhere.
It has the original band with clasp, and no other identifying marks on the watch itself other than the name Bulova in black below the number 12. The even numbers on the watch face are listed; the odd numbers are represented by silver hash marks on a white face. The crystal is raised and curved from top to bottom.
Any help in identifying its year and model, and possible value, is appreciated. My email address is [email protected].
Thanks for your help.
In reply to Add pictures under my by john607
In reply to PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME WITH by john607
John, I think your CAPS LOCK button is stuck in the 'on' position.
One of the many things that makes collecting and owning a vintage Bulova watch interesting is the challenge of sometimes having to find out what model the watch is. As we all know Bulova didn't seem to keep too many records of the different models they have sold over the last 100 years or so ( a big job in itself I would imagine and if anyone at Bulova is reading this please please PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong ).
I have had an extensive look at all the information I have (which to be perfectly honest is but a drop in the ocean) and at this stage cannot find any information on this design. Bulova released a great deal of ladies watches in the 40 and 50s so trying to find information can be tricky to say the least.
With that said we can still probably hazard a guess at its current market value. It 14K gold which pumps the price up, it has 6 diamonds...again price up....now a jeweler would be much better at valuing the watch based on the gold content and diamonds, but wouldn't be able to help you much with the market value of the watch itself. Then there is the fact that it's your mother's...you can't put a price on that...or can you :-)
John, best bet if you want to guage a true sense of what the watch is worth on the current market as a 'vintage Bulova watch' you best have a look at what similar watches are going for on eBay. If you want to the value based on gold and diamonds ask a jeweler. From my perspective the watch may fetch somewhere bewteen $50 and $150....a far cry from what a vintage watch should be worth but in my experience is probably what the watch might sell for on eBay.
If you really want to know the age of the watch you need to take the back case off and see what the date stamp is on the the movement. According to the date inscribed on the case my guess is that you'll find a '49' stamp there somewhere.
Hi John607
Have you tried looking under the "informaton" tab at the top of the page? There you will find another tab "Vintage Bulova Ads" . There are quite a lot of ads here and you may be able to identify the watch from one of these advertisments.
If you can take the back off of the watch and have a look at the back of the movement you should be able to see a symbol - like one of the symbols on the sheet - once again under "information" at the top of the page and this time under "Bulova Date Codes" . You may need a magnifying glass to see the writing on a small movement, but there should be something there.
Hope this helps
Cheers
Janet