Hi All! I've recently acquired this 1960's Ladies Bulova with inner box marked "Fifth Avenue New York". The watch it's self looks a lot like the 1960 Christmas advertisement "Miss Universe" but with a different band. This band has a black fill in between gold rope. I need to service the movment and replace the crystal before I give it as a special gift. Can anyone help me find part numbers of a suitable crystal I can chase down for the job?
Outside Caseback Data:
Bulova
M0 date code (1960)
10k R.G.P Bezel
Stainless Steel Back
sn: U924214
Inside Caseback Data:
Bulova
10K Rolled Gold Plate Bezel
Stainless Back
New York
four watch service marks
Movement Data:
17 jewels
6BM movement code
BXW import code
Dated M0 (1960)
Crystal Info (measured still glued in case):
Glues in from the front of the case from the outside
2.25mm Domed above case line
12.35mm long
11.14mm wide
Thanks for your help!
Welcome and thanks for sharing your new treasure with us. Based on the 1960 Linebook, your watch is a
1960 Miss Universe "D"
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Your crystal looks pretty good. If it has no cracks, I would suggest going on ebay and looking for Novus Scratch Remover (#3 for heavy and #2 for light). It's a polish and takes a little elbow grease with a cotton ball, but gives excellent results. I would say you could bring the crystal back to new appearance with #2 with about 5 minutes of "bear down" buffing. It's relatively inexpensive, won't harm the watch case , gives good results and much cheaper than finding a crystal and paying someone to replace it. I have probably brought 400 crystals back to clean without removing them from the watch. Some were pretty horrible to start.
By the way, I like the band that's on it!
Thank you for your informative reply neetstuf-4-u, I do appreciate it!
Sadly the crystal has a pressure fracture from an impact. The intended new owner probably wouldn't notice but the trouble is that it may be a moisture ingress point or allow the crystal to loosen rapidly with use. Thankfully I can do the replacement work and the service work myself. Most of my expertise are in Japanese vintage watches so I don't have much in the way of resources for identifying and locating this Bulova crystal. I have been reviewing the GS catalog and I think I have found something close. I believe I need to remove the crystal to get proper measurements before making a blind commitment to a generic. If I can figure out the actual Bulova crystal part number then I think I'll be ahead as I can hopefully just use a cross reference guide to find the solution.
The crystal was a perfect fit and final assembly is completed! While this 6BM has no published lift angle I'm testing using 48° and have seen some impressive numbers when the dial is up or down. This movement has some positional error in the vertical test points due to what I would expect to be poising error. I'm not equipped to improve this so I am leaving well enough alone. The movement being fully serviced is running very well despite some beat error in the range of 0.2ms to 0.8ms depending on position. I have managed to regulate it to hold a six position average of -4.5sec/day which for a watch with no sweep hand and a dial less than half an inch (>12mm) in total diameter isn't going to be noticed. It will come down to the wearer and what positions it stays in the longest if I am to do any better.
A few parting shots of course are due!
Thanks again to all who helped me with this project. I will present it to the new owner tomorrow night at dinner :)
