Hey All, Im new here, though have been on many other forums for years. For about 2 years now , i have been rebuilding and refinishing my own watches. I do pretty well buying from yeard sales, flea markets , thrift stores , pawn shops, and sometimes FLEABAY. I flip {resell} watches i refurbish or rebuild, except the ones i really like. Those i have in my collection. The watch i am trying to find out about have really stumped me. I have other Bulova watches, and a few other sea king models, even a 1970FL. But this one is a odd ball. Its a 1969 , according to the date stamp on back{m9}. It has the correct period movement, a 17J 11ALC . It came to me working, though looking somewhat sad.It needed a new crown, which i had. I relubed the watch, polished the crystal some. Buffed out the steel on the case gently , and put a matching bracelet on it eventually. It keeps time great. Youll notice it does have the "whale " on the dial. In fact , the auction title called it the "bulova whale watch". I can not find another one like it online. And unless i am missing a secret database here at Mybulova , there isnt any mention of this watch in the ads. Does anyone have any clue what model this is? Is it somehow rare or a oddball? Thanks in advance for any info.
Cheers, Rod
Your watch certainly has the qualities of a Sea King, but I'm unable to find a match in the sites adverts. Hopefully we'll one day we will find a matching advert or you yourself may come across something. If you do please don't hesitate to add the advert here for us all to see and learn from.
Hi Rod - thanks for sharing - Long story short is that we find dozens of authentic Bulova watches monthly that don't seem to appear in any of their advertising (or we just haven't found the elusive cache of adverts yet). Basically we're doing two things here - sharing our Bulova collections AND trying to reconstruct Bulova history by finding and sharing old ads.
It's a great watch, can't say I've seen anything quite like it. Oddball? sure we see some of those, Rare? well, Bulova did mass produce watches for the consumer market, so ..........
Thanks for the welcomes, and the interest in the watch,
I found 2 watches just like this on Fleabay one day , going off with in 15 minutes of each other. The first one was in mint condition , unused. I lost the auction. But i won the second one. As i said , it needed some repairs, but nothing terrible. Both watches were identical , right down to the colors and finish on the dial. So i rather doubt one was a redial job.
When i get my camera out , ill take a pic of the case back . But i will say its identical , aside from serial numbers, to my other sea king, a 1970 seaking FL. It even has the same sized screw down ring for the back.
I dont know what a pop out case is ?? Do you mean something similar to what Croton and Hamilton watches did using "clst" cases, or a case in the case ?
The watch measures 37mm side to side including the crown. From lug end to lug end it measures 42mm. And including the crystal , it measures 13mm high.
Thanks again for anyone doing any looking into the history of this watch.
Rod
To me , it was a no brainer to bid on when i saw it. I had seen many watches earier that day that were "better" watches, and yet , as you said, it was flamboyant and striking.
Ill have to look up the midshipman , i cant remember seeing any other bulova quite like this seaking.
Thanks for looking !