Today, I embark on a project I’ve had in mind for a while. Getting ready for an exhibition of watches in early April. Two of us pool our collections for an annual hobby show. This is the second year we will feature Accutrons. A quick check of my collection tells me I’ll be buying a few batteries over the next while. Out of about 25 Accutrons, only two are running!

I’ll start out with my first Accutron, a 214 model. One owner (me). My late father gave it to me in 1964. It has been on my wrist for many important occasions in my life. When we were married, out son’s christening in 1971, and on our 50th wedding anniversary in 2016. Plus there are others, too numerous to list here.

This watch is on its second dial, it’s third circuit assembly, it’s third index wheel, and umpteenth crystal and gasket. If I was to be asked which is my favourite watch, I might choose this one. Looks and runs like new.

 

Understated elegance.

 

Great watch and history.

 

Oh, please make a video that records the sound of all those Accutrons together!

 

This is Day 2 in this thread. Several years ago, a friend was lucky to be invited to a sight at the shop of a mutual acquaintance who had passed away. This fellow was retired, and was living on a very generous pension. He loved watches, and fancied himself as being a “watchmaker”. Actually, he was an under motivated tinker chasing watches, tools, parts, etc. etc., and had the money to do it with. My friend found a large stash of dismantled Accutrons that he who had passed had NO CLUE what to do with, once he got these watches pulled apart. My friend acquired the stash for me. This watch was in pieces, in that stash.

The watch had a rough life. It was in pieces. The case was incomplete, and had two bent lugs, one of which was badly cracked when someone tried to straighten it. I collected all the parts I needed to make a running watch of it then took the case to a goldsmith friend to have the case repaired. It came back to me, not done! He doesn’t work on gold filled stuff. The case was otherwise in good shape, so I dug out the borax, the ethyl alcohol, my acetylene torch, an asbestos pad, gold solder, and soldered the cracked lug. Annealing the case in the process enabled me to straighten both lugs. Now to make a watch out of it. This might look like the Accutron shown in day one, but it is not that watch. Since the case was assembled out of pieces, I can only guess that it was likely mid-1960s. Stay tuned for Day 3.

 

How much will 23 Accutron batteries cost?

 

Regular 1.5 volt silver oxide calls run about $1.50 (Cdn.). Some Accutrons run well on these cells. Sometimes you need a modified cell called an Accu-Cell. These run about $12.50 (Cdn.). The components of an Accu-Cell can be re-used when the cell in them dies.

 

Mine didn't like running on the cheaper battery, gaining 7 sec or so per day. If I am remembering the details correctly, Canuck then provided me with an Accu-Cell. It turns out that my watch (a '73 Spaceview) likes Accu-Cells very very much. Looking at it this morning, it has just lost apx 2 minutes, total, since mid-September. I think this is a very lucky achievement.

 

Day three. An Accutron 214 Railroader, 24-hour Canadian dial. From 1966. Fifty four years old, but shows few signs of ever having been used. The Accutron 214 Railroader was not the first wrist watch approved for use on railroads. That distinction might belong to Elgin, Universal Geneva, (both mechanical), or possibly the lamentable Hamilton Electric. The Accutron 214 was approved for railroad use circa 1964. It was the first hugely successful wrist watch for that purpose. Unrivalled in accuracy and popularity. The advent of railroad approved wrist watches sounded the death knell of the railroad standard pocket watch.

 

I'm fairly certain the Elgin B.W. Raymond beat all the other RR wrist watches to approval by nearly a year. I could be wrong about the Hamilton Electric though.

 

I think the Hamilton Electric Railroader beat the Accutron as approved for railroad use, by a year or so, as well. The Hamilton was rushed by the company, and it fizzled! Bulova, on the other hand, spent about 9 years developing the Accutron, and when it reached the market, most of the bugs had been removed. Hamilton introduced the Electric too quickly, and tried to iron out the bugs after millions had been sold! I suspect that fact hastened the demise of the company.

 

According to Rene Rondeau’s book on the Hamilton Electric, the Hamilton Railroader 505 was approved for railroad use in September 1962, beating the Accutron Railroader by about two years.

 

Bulova started work on the Accutron by hiring a Swiss physicist Max Hetzel, in about 1953. Hetzel was working on a timing device that used a transistorized circuit and tuning fork, in a timepiece. At about the same time, LIP in France, and Elgin were also working on an electric (not electronic) timepiece. Hamilton was not about to let someone else scoop the electric watch market, so they cobbled together the Hamilton Electric 500 movement, and introduced it in 1957. It was down hill from there for Hamilton. They had to replace many faulty Hamilton Electric watches over the years. They bought the Buren Watch Co., of Switzerland, and the Buren micro-rotor automatic watch replaced countless Hamilton Electrics.

 

Day # 4. Another Accutron Railroader today. Like the one from day # 3, but this one has a lot of miles on it. It was acquired in pieces, in a jumble of Accutron parts, so I can only estimate the age as being about 55 years old, or so. Another 24-hour Canadian dial. Like all my Accutrons, a good performer. I collect railroad standard pocket watches (Hamilton, Waltham, Elgin, Illinois, Howard, Keystone Howard, Hampden, Brandt), so railroad standard wrist watches fit in with everything else I collect.

 

I have always liked the looks of the Hamilton electrics but have always heard that they are terrible which has put me off buying one. From what I can tell the Elgin B.W. Raymond wrist chronometer first went on sale as officially endorsed for use on the railroads in 1960. Of course, it isn't as cool because it doesn't use a tuning fork. Interesting side note, which I learned the first time I cracked mine open to clean it, you cannot adjust the balance spring in the normal fashion. The balance is called a durabalance, it has spiral balance arms, and is free sprung with a flat hairspring. To adjust the rate there are a pair of weights on the balance that you can move outwards to retard the rate or inwards to advance the rate.

 

I am curious about the bracelets you have on the two Railroad Approved watches. I have a similar straight lugged version on canvas strap, but want to try something different. Are yours generic bands, or Accutron originals? I have only seen them on leather straps in old adverts.

 

Those bracelets are just generic after market bracelets. I’ll be posting an Accutron Railroader 218 model on Saturday that has an original Kreisler “coffin” link bracelet on it. As far as I am able to recall, the Accutron 214 Railroader was sold on a strap.

 

Ummm what’s causing that shadow?

 

Thanks, good to know. I look forward to future installments of this series!

 

LOL, that's my black dog. The right horn is her actual tail, and the left its shadow.