Don't Buy This Watch, Vol. II

The Bulova Lunar Pilot (for @UnholiestJedi )

The premise for this exercise has been discussed. @Porthole and I are here to de-influence you into not buying a watch. No watches were harmed in this process.

Porthole:  Let me start by saying I genuinely have no desire to own this watch, but it’s never really been on my radar. Even vintage Bulova, as lively as it is, does not really get me as excited as say a Gruen or a Benrus when we talk about classic American brands. It’s not exactly enticing, it’s a Chronograph that, if one was to go down the list of vintage / vintage-inspired Chronographs that one would like to buy, it wouldn’t even hit the top 50, narrowly beaten by such legends as the Tag Heuer F1 Series 1 with the delicate Ronda movement that doesn’t survive beyond 1994, and an Undone Batman (the not good one). Even in the list of most popular “moon” watches it doesn’t even hit the top two, beaten by the Speedy and something that looks like a Speedy, has Moon in the name, rhymes with watch, and didn’t even go to the Moon. It was so unimportant that Bulova themselves didn’t even know it went to the Moon until the astronaut himself put it up for sale at auction. This is a watch that nobody loved, like Harry Potter when he lived under the stairs, and then Citizen Bulova came along like a horological Hagrid and rescued it from a life of misery…

Instead of taking it to Hogwarts he fed it steroids. Gen I is 45mm, 52.5mm lug-to-lug! The absolute madlads at Bulova just foie-gras’ed this chrono and turned it into some behemoth of unwieldiness. It’s an ICBM of a watch. Gen II isn’t much better, 43.5mm and 51mm lug-to-lug, it’s still an horological satellite. It would affect the tides with its gravitational pull it’s so large… Moon-mission conspiracy theorists beware, the reason the flag waves is because of the gravitational field of this watch both when it was up there, and here and now with the reissues.

It’s ok… I think there are many chronographs out there that look nicer and having a “clean dial” is a very low bar to clear personally. I actually think the pushers make it look lop-sided, like it’s swallowed a dolphin whole and is struggling to get the tail down its gullet. 

The main thing I don’t like is that they didn’t really bother with the original: it’s not really a homage, it’s more like a correction. Yes, we like the Valjoux 72, but we think you need this ultra-quartz thing instead. We like your size, but you need to be bigger to stand out. You need a date as well, you know, because that’s something… even in homage, the original is forgotten. How can you respect something you never knew about or care to celebrate, flaws and all?

Aurelian:  You picked the first watch to attempt to de-influence and it was fitting because that was such a popular and trendy watch. Folks, mostly, got the jokes made at the expense of our influencer watch culture. However, the Lunar Pilot isn’t the popular cheerleader or homecoming king, it is an awkward new kid who just transferred in from another school. You will allow them to sit at your lunch table, but just for now. When a more popular watch comes along they will have to sit at the table with Citizen, Shinola, and the less popular microbrands.

This watch is a re-released homage of a watch that never existed. Omega beat out Bulova, Rolex, Wittnauer and Wakmann to supply NASA astronauts with mission watches. Bulova had used Accutron technology in dials and gauges for NASA. It was the accuracy standard for the pre-quartz world. But the Speedmaster won the competition and Bulova’s watch was never made. It was worn on the Moon in a glorious accident when a Speedmaster failed and an astronaut wore his own Bulova prototype. This was not a historical watch like the Speedmaster, or even like the other competition also-ran, the Daytona. This watch only was noticed by the brain trust at Bulova when that astronaut sold his watch at auction. History sells, even if it is a slight one, and Bulova gave us the Lunar Pilot.

I am more of a fan of vintage Bulova than you are. I have argued that Bulova had a thirty-year run from the 1945 to 1975 where their watches rivaled many of the best brands in the world. They made classical dress watches, funky shaped cases, experimented with batteries before almost anyone, and created one-offs like the Spinnaker, the greatest yacht watch of all time. Absent from this rich history however, is the Lunar Pilot. It made no mark. It left no trace.

Modern Bulova is very bland to me. They have less flair than Citizen (who has practically none) and they don’t have Citizen’s technical prowess. What they do share with the parent brand is the inability to see the trend towards smaller watches. This smaller version has a lug to lug that puts it out of the comfort zone of all but the largest among us. So, if you are on the large size, could this be the watch for you?

Why would it be? For what you get it is overpriced. And bland. For less money you could get a nicer looking Dan Henry or Jack Mason. If you like your watch brands with only one name you could get a mechanical Hemel.

The hype for this watch is the barest sliver of history of the prototype. If you wait a few weeks after this one’s release the urgency will wane and you may find yourself with another chronograph that you will like for years to come.

(The OG)

Porthole:  I will admit I’m not a Bulova fan, and it is probably a “me problem”. From an American perspective, if I wanted elegant or a tank then I would probably go for a Gruen. If I wanted rugged I would go for a Benrus. Classic and historical, then Elgin or Waltham. There are lots of other brands I have yet to scratch the surface, and therefore messing around with Bulova is the equivalent of leaving the party at 8pm. I haven’t even got to Illinois, Helbros and Santa Fe, and they’re not arriving till at least midnight. Whilst I won’t deny the older Bulova was quality as a brand, I just cannot get as excited by them as the others I have mentioned. Perhaps it is the current incarnation of the brand that fuels this, I have seen some incredibly boring watches, and I just cannot distance myself and my thoughts about the brand in general from the ennui.

I am quite partial to a Citizen, I prefer them to Seiko in some cases (Orca, that lovely Chronometer they make, a vintage Eagle 7…). I think vintage Citizen is also pretty cool, with some of the Parawaters and the JetAutoDater as well; some of the older Citizen movements are very clever. They can be a mixed bag though, for every ProDiver there is a large number of randoms like the Nighthawk Red Arrows or those ghastly bi-metal EcoDrive world timers. Is it fair to say that the brand doesn’t really have much of an identity? Probably, it’s quite scattergun. If you then buy Bulova, it’s very fitting that brand will share your lack of direction or identity. What is a Bulova now, is it budget? Is it Accutron? Is it luxury? Is it classic American? If you answered no to any of these questions, you may already own a Bulova.

If I can go back to the Lunar Pilot though - I’ve been looking at it again, and I don’t like the crystal and how it’s integrated into the watch. I also don’t like the hands, I think they look a bit plasticy. I don’t like the cream / blue anniversary edition as well, it just looks like any other chronograph. I might as well buy a MoonSwatch if I wanted a space theme. I also think it looks Omega-lite. My Chronostop is pretty sweet with its tachymeter round the outside. The Speedy also looks particularly handsome, and that’s a boring watch (I’ve tried to buy one 5 times, but I just can’t bring myself to commit). Any chronograph is a better choice, mostly because they are wearable, unlike this beefcake.

I think, whilst rambling, I have discovered why it’s annoying me so: I find space-related stuff a bit kitsch. I remember things like the Space Pen, astronaut food, etc… and it just reminds me of the abominable things that people would suggest the future would look like, that terrible retro-modern style. I need a watch that could take me to the Moon! Take this 1960s looking thing. Look at this robot, it is capable of solving complex numerical problems in microseconds, and yet it looks like a potato and a colander had sex in the Christmas tree lights. Dr Who sets and the Cybermen who are clearly the sound department wearing tin foil. The home of the future: it’s an oval, and everything is jobby-shaped. Citizen had a bit of this in the 90s, alongside others, with their 1481010 sub-brand, really curvy digital affairs… aha, this is why we are here! It is Citizens doing…

Aurelian:  Sometimes an individual watch is a stand-in for something else. In Tudor’s case the criticism involved the worshipful culture around the brand and watch. For the Lunar Pilot, the real criticism is to be leveled at the brand (and its corporate overlords) for producing many boring watches, of which, the Lunar Pilot is just one. Would Frank Sinatra wear one of his “Signature” watches instead of a Patek Philippe or whatever he really wore? Of course not. Bulova just mines its own back catalog for ideas (Parking Meter chronograph) or someone else’s (Mil-Ships).

Another niggling criticism of Bulova that shows up on the crown of the Lunar Pilot is Bulova’s absolute mishandling of the Accutron legacy. Accutron tuning fork technology was the pinnacle of accuracy in the ten years before the advent of quartz movements. Sometimes a decade is all a technology gets. Accutron doesn’t mean anything affixed to a quartz watch. To do so is to negate its history. It would be the equivalent of saying that a Tesla has a Dynaflow transmission. Oh no it doesn’t.

The Lunar Pilot is a big, bland, and slightly too expensive, chronograph. So, to the Lunar Pilot I say: “Because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I spew you out of my mouth.”

(The top photo of the BLP obscuring the wrist of a fully grown man is from Two Broke Watch Snobs. The original BLP photo is from Gear Patrol.)