Hello all,
I am new to the forum, and I am really enjoying learning more. I found this beauty at a swap meet and it is not complete by any means. I bought it with a fake (I presume) Rolex case back taped to the back to hold the movement in. It is missing the crown, crown stem, and movement ring, and possibly more. I did buy a not correct date oceanographer case back dated N5 (1975), but it fits. I put 1967 for the date because of the timeframe for the 11BLACD movement, but please correct me if I am wrong. I find this watch is interesting because it doesn’t say oceanographer anywhere on the dial and it also has super waterproof in place of 333 feet.
Any input would be great, thank you.
Hi ZOCK93, welcome to myBulova. This ID is tricky for a couple reasons. Normally we base a portion of the ID and year of manufacture on the case details, Knowing that the case back is not correct is a problem because we can't accurately date the watch. The watch style is like the Oceanographer D like THIS one. The D variant normally came with a 11ALACD so the BLACD is not far off. The dial is not correct for the D variant either as the markings do not match.
We generally ID a watch that is made up of components from several non-matching models as Non-Conforming and we may do that to yours.
As far as I can tell, the correct crown (in yellow) is part number 74Y, the gasket is G792 and the movement ring is MR486.
Thank you for the information. I was afraid that there would be some mismatched pieces there based on the condition I bought it. I will try to get it out back together in as original as possible condition, but I will see if I can find the parts. Thanks again. I hope this is the first of many watches that I post.
Thank you for posting this watch. I think you are close with the date since I believe it was 1967 that Waterproof was removed from watches in the United States. It could possible have been used overseas for a few years after that so 1971 seems logical if it is a non-US market watch. Most likely a Bulova Oceanographer.
This is a tricky one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the transition away from "waterproof" branding was early to mid year 1969. That was the changing point to "333". I found an example of an Oceanographer "F" pictured in the 1970-LineBook_BAWD0174 with the dial marked "super waterproof". Linebooks seemed to show models available for sale in the named year, so it's entirely possible this watch is correct except for the back, and was produced as seen in 1969. The 4 earliest examples by s/n of the "D" in the database are also a 1969 and fitted with a 11BLACD movement (but display 666 Feet on the dial)
This would seem to be a potential 1969 dial with a 1970 "N0" movement, which is not out of the ordinary - housed in what is quite likely a 1969 case. Based on this hypothesis, along with all other points of reference matching; I am comfortable with
1969 Oceanogapher "D"
noting replacement back.
Ok so now knowing that the movement is stamped 1970, lets use that as the date. Thus I think we would be safe to ID as a 1970 Bulova Oceanographer "D", noting that this watch could not be any other model/variant despite the non-conforming case back. I understand that in the past we have ID'd such examples of clear date range differences as non-con, but we have also discussed in the past that if said watch can only be one model and one variant, we should still ID as such. I believe that this is the case with this watch, unless it could be another variant, in which case we should ID as a generic Oceanographer.