Here’s a photo of my 1967 Bulova Accutron (218D). It’s not a high end piece (value is probably $400), but they are interesting watches with much historical significance and a good following.

It’s a battery powered watch with two small coils which sit between a small tuning fork. The magnetic field that is created causes the tuning fork to vibrate which runs the watch. The watch doesn’t tick, it hums (super cool).

Pinside played a role in getting this old thing working again...

When I was 9 yrs old I found the watch in a gravel parking lot of a restaurant while on vacation in Tanenbalm Arkansas with my family. I saw it was 14k gold and brought it home and placed it in my drawer... where it sat for the next 40 years.

After reading this thread in December of last year I decided I owed it to this watch to get it running. After being turned down by a 100 year old jewelry store near my home (their repair people were not familiar with how to fix them) I found an Accutron expert.

The expert is an Australian watch maker who lives in Thailand. He met his wife in Australia at a party. She was locked in a bathroom and he was her rescuer. She was Thai and so they moved after they were married.

Anyway, the watch went to Thailand, was fixed, and arrived back home in February. After 40 years it’s back in action and I enjoy wearing it.
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