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!
Member for
8 years 4 monthsWelcome 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!
Member for
1 year 10 monthsThank 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.
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1 year 10 monthsThe 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 :)
