A History and Guide to Bulova

Jacob Van Buren

Aug 1, 2025

Joseph Bulova was just twenty-four when he founded a company that would revolutionize American watchmaking. Immigrating to the United States from Bohemia in 1870, he founded the J. Bulova Company in 1875 on New York City’s Maiden Lane, specializing in jewelry and watch and clock repair. The business grew, and by 1911 the Bulova Company began producing table clocks and pocket watches. The next year, Joseph Bulova opened a Biel, Switzerland plant for the mass production of watches. The J. Bulova Company was reincorporated as the Bulova Watch Company in 1923, symbolizing its shift into watch production.

America Runs on Bulova Time

Of all the American watchmakers, Bulova was the savviest when it came to advertising. Recognizing its power early on, Bulova sponsored the first horological radio advertisement in 1926 — “At the tone, it’s eight o'clock, Bulova Watch Time.”That same year, Joseph’s son Ardé offered a $1,000 prize to the first pilot(s) to succeed in a non-stop crossing of the Atlantic, sending each pilot who registered for the Orteig Prize — an offering of $25,000 by New York City hotel-owner Raymond Orteig beginning in 1919 — a Bulova Conqueror and a letter offering their $1,000 prize. The next year, an airmail pilot named Charles Lindbergh made history as the first person to make the flight.

Bulova capitalized on it, advertising their Lone Eagle watch that included a facsimile of a letter written by Lindbergh before his historic flight, thanking Bulova for the watch that “is my pleasure to wear, keeps accurate time and is a beauty.”Bulova’s legacy of firsts extended beyond radio. Shortly after the restriction on commercial ventures on television was lifted, Bulova ran the very first television ad on July 1, 1941. It ran for just ten seconds. The ad was seen by just 4,000 people viewing New York’s WNBT station and consisted of a static image of a clock placed over a map of the continental United States with a voiceover adding “America Runs on Bulova Time.”

The company led American watchmakers in marketing costs through the 1960s, leading to an expansive network of over 20,000 US distributors by 1968. A 1955 A.C. Nielsen Company survey showed that Americans saw more advertising for Bulova products than any other product in the world.

Bulova Goes to War

The conflict that would envelop the world in 1939 also relied on Bulova watches. In addition to aviation instruments, telescopes, navigation clocks, and time fuses, Bulvoa produced wrist watches for the armed forces that have become icons. The Ordnance Department field watch and A-11 and A-15 pilot watches have come to define both genres, codifying archetypes into forms they occupy to this day.

Following the end of the war, Ardé Bulova founded The Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking, named after his father, who had passed away in 1935. The school was dedicated to offering tuition-free training to disabled veterans in watchmaking as a means of rehabilitation and job placement. While the school closed in 1993, its vision lives on through the Veterans Watchmaking Initiative. Inspired by the Bulova program, it serves the same mission. Bulova pledged its support to the organization shortly after its founding in 2017.

In the late 1950s, Bulova was selected to build a watch by the US Navy's Bureau of Ships as an American alternative to the Swiss Rolex, Enicar, and Blancpain watches that the Navy had been testing. The resulting prototype, referred to as the MIL-SHIPS, never entered full production and remains a rare example of an early military dive watch.

WATCHES FROM BULOVA

An Entirely New Type of Watch

Accutron. Based on an electronically-activated tuning fork, the Accutron represented a fundamentally new method of measuring time tune when it was released in 1960. NASA was impressed by the technology, asking the watchmaker to incorporate it into their computers for the space program. The Accutron Astronaut, a watch specifically designed for space travel, orbited the Earth inside the Mercury Atlas-9 capsule in 1963. While they never saw greater use with NASA, they did see use by the Air Force on the X-15 rocket-powered aircraft program and by the A-12 supersonic jet pilots of the CIA. In 1969, an Accutron movement was placed on the moon by the astronauts of Apollo 11.

Bulova’s connection to the final frontier goes even deeper. The brand gifted a unique chronograph to Colonel Dave Scott in 1971, commander of Apollo 15. When the crystal of Scott’s issued Omega popped off, the colonel swapped to his personal Bulova and the rest is history. Bulova re-created the watch in 2016 to commemorate the sale of Scott’spersonal watch, updating the original’s mechanical caliber to a new high-accuracy quartz movement — further innovation from the brand. In all, Bulova played a part in 46 NASA missions.

Bulova’s commitment to innovation with Accutron proved to be its saving grace through the 1970s and 1980s. Where other brands struggled to adapt to the change wrought by the introduction of the quartz movement in 1969, an event enthusiasts refer to as the “Quartz Crisis,” Bulova thrived — they introduced their own quartz watch to the US market in 1970, the Accuquartz, and continued to expand the lineup through the decade.

Bulova’s century of independence ended in 1979 when it became a subsidiary of the Loews Corporation, a conglomerate with real estate, banking, industrial, agriculture, and other subsidiaries.

Bulova Mil-Ships

Bulova Hack Watch 

Modern Resurgence

Though its brand recognition continued, Bulova’s prominence had dwindled by the turn of the century. In 2007, the Loews Corporation entered an agreement to sell the entirety of Bulova’s shares to Japanese watchmaking juggernaut Citizen. The acquisition saw Citizen looking to strengthen its entry-level market segment as well as expand its presence in the United States. Today, Bulova’s modern status is in large part due to Citizen’s careful management of the brand. The brand is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2025, and it is celebrating in style. The documentary America Telling Time: 150 Years of Bulova is now streaming, highlighting the brand’s trailblazing history. With recent smash hits like the Oceanographer, Lunar Pilot, Accutron, and more, Bulova is ripe for another 150 years of firsts.

To see more of our favorite Bulova watches, check out the Bulova page on the Windup Watch Shop. As always, the Windup Watch Team is available via consultation to answer any questions you have. In addition, all of these products are eligible for free domestic shipping across the US.

Bulova A-11 Hack (above)
Bulova Lunar Pilot (right)

People Also Read