Vintage Bulova Marine Star Chronograph Exploration

Cheers everyone! Hoping to start a chat to aggregate info/data/pictures on vintage Bulova Marine Stars ("BMS"). Lovely watch IMO, and one that deserves a little more recognition/research.

Anyway, I'll kick it off with my version below. Found it in LNOS condition, still with sticker, original box and metal bracelet (on a suede strap rn). Has a Valjoux 7731, is a hefty 43mm, and was probably made in the late 70s or early 80s, although I haven't been able to confirm this.

It obviously shares design similarities to the Zenith A. Cairelli and a few other brands out there (UG, Tissot, etc.). Wouldn't be surprised if that's a result of companies diving into and sharing parts bins during the quartz crisis. Some online sources suggest there may have been a military/police connection to the BMS, but again, that's hard to confirm.

Again, please share any info/data/pictures you have! Thanks.

Bought nos a few years ago, from 1979, supposingly around 500 pieces made

Several members have these and hopefully will post them! Personally, i love them!

Thanks for sharing! Any source for the 500 production number? Would be great to get some backup on that. Cheers mate.

Do you mean besides the internet ? nope

Continuing the conversion - when scouring the internet one can see that there is a lot of speculation around the provenance of the components (military connection, spare parts bin at Zenith, etc.). None of these theories is substantiated by facts or documentation from Bulova corporate, and I doubt they ever will be (although I have formally reached out for archival information). We also don't have production numbers (Ludi and some other forums suggest there being ~500 made), or exact dates of production (estimates coalesce around Variant 1 coming from the late 60s / early 70s, while Variants 2 & 3 are probably from the late 70s).

What we do know is that there were 3 distinct variants of the Marine Star (each measuring ~43mm):
Variant 1: Valjoux 72, black dial, 3 registers, baton hour indices, white chrono and subdial hands, screw-down crown, and red/black bezel.


Variant 2. Valjoux 7740, white dial, 3 registers and a date, arabic numerals, blue steel chrono and subdial hands, black bezel, and a screw-down crown. Similar versions were made in both white and black dials for Excelsior Park as Monte Carlo models.

(Photo from Alistair on Chronocentric)

Variant 3. Valjoux 7731, black dial, 2 registers, arabic numerals, white chrono and subdial hands, black uni-directional bezel and a screw-down crown. Marine Star is written above the 10 red stars.

(Photo of my watch again)

Good info about the variants. Didn't know about that, as they're fairly rarely seen.

Thank you all (especially @SeaSubRod) for your contributions in this illuminating thread. I love these watches and have been patiently hunting one for a while.

I have two questions on ‘Variant 3’ specifically if anyone can help. Firstly, it seems like whenever these watches have popped up for sale over the past few years, they are invariably NOS or close to NOS. Should this be cause for any concern?

Secondly, does this reference follow the Bulova date coding key? I ask because there often seems to be some ambiguity about the year of manufacture (or parts bin assembly depending on your point of view 😉). Does anyone here who has one know if the case or movement are stamped in line with the below?


(Table from from pocketwatchrepair.com)

Cheers!

Fun fact, Bulova has no record about this watch actually.

A friend of mine asked them about details and this is what they answered back

« Taking a look at the images you provided I can tell you one thing that the
timepiece was marketed for Europe and the Asia. The markings on the back
are totally different than the United States. During the period of the
late 70's until the mid 90'd Bulova leased the name to several companies
that made watch with the Bulova name on the dial and we never here in the US
had the information available. Our Hong Kong office did have data on these
models until just recently when that information was discarded. Sorry I can
not be more of a help »

At least can we narrow the date of production between late 70’s and mid 90’s

Ah, thanks for the info anyway @Ludi . We need a word with the caretaker in Citizen’s Hong Kong office . Seriously though, why would any trading company dispose of archived product information?

May I ask, taking all this into account, how do you know that yours is from 1979?

Unfortunately, these Marine Stars don't adhere to the old Bulova reference structure (as far as I can tell). Honestly, I've rarely seen a Bulova after the late 70s with a letter and number. As to your comment on the quality of Marine Stars coming up for sale, I'd say I've seen the exact opposite! If I were to generalize, I'd say less than 1 out of every 10 Marines Stars that comes up for sale is in NOS condition. But perhaps we look at different sources. But anyway, cheers!

Bulova puzzle ... no marks inside the caseback nor on the bridge. Still no significant idea regarding the watch provenance, date of manufacture, etc...

SuWEEET

But was there fourth version?