Oh yes, about this sweeping second’s hand.

My Bulova “Lobster” is kind of a mixed bag, which is probably why I kept it and the reason why I still wear it. It’s like the designers never agreed on what kind of watch it was supposed to be, except that it had to have a 262kHz UHF movement. Therefore it doesn’t hum like its predecessors but kept the smooth sweeping second’s hand.

The first instance of cognitive dissonance came when I unpacked it for the first time and realized just how large it really was. The retro 70’s design of the case is confronted with an absolutely not retro 70’s size as the Lobster is as large as a Lunar Pilot, but without the excuse of needing its size to house a chronograph movement or the requirement to be strapped to a space suit. It’s just large, because why not. Thankfully there is some truth about the saying that wearing black is slimming ,because the black PVD coating, together with the lugless design, manage to somehow hide how large it really is on the wrist.

The compressor style inner rotating bezel is also a contradiction as the 100m WR rating indicate that the Lobster isn’t a diver’s. It should be safe for daily use but I personally wouldn’t dip it in anything more challenging than a kitchen sink. This bezel, like the one in my SARB017 Alpinist, is more of a design rather than a functional element, but unlike the one on the SARB its action is smooth and firm without a hint of a wobble or misalignment. It’s basically the action we wanted but never got from Seiko.

The build quality is also an area where styling decisions clashed with engineering and cost production restrictions. On one hand we have a very nice yellow lime on black color scheme, applied indices and tune fork logo, adding to a framed date window and the general feeling of a watch well put together. On the other hand there is this huge magnifying glass lens on top that can’t be made of anything else because acrylic of this size would flex too much and a sapphire with this unusual shape would probably double the production’s cost.

And then there is the sweeping second’s hand. We take it now as a novelty and an iconic part of the Accutron legacy, but the truth is that there’s nothing special about it. Sweeping hands were the only kind of second’s hands there was around when the first Accutron watch was launched. Everybody had it and we had to wait for quartz watches to get introduced to ticking second’s hand. Yes, I do know that mechanical ticking second’s hands did exist, but they were expensive and quite rare. Personally I never saw any before quartz watches became common.

Would the Lobster be an Accutron without the sweeping second’s hand? I believe that the majority of us would vote for a no. Does having a sweeping second’s hand make it a true Accutron? Here is where it becomes a bit fuzzier because the name was transferred to another company under the umbrella of Citizen and they do make watches with sweeping second’s hands called Accutron – they just don’t make a lot of them, if any.

Which is the reason why I have zero problems wearing a quartz driven Bulova branded Accutron with a sweeping second’s hand, since the chances of an Accutron branded owner resenting it are close to nil.