The Accutron, keeping time with a vibrating resonator, was guaranteed to be accurate to a minute per month, or 2 seconds per day, considerably better than mechanical watches of the time. But Bulova made its last tuning fork movement wristwatches in 1977. That year they also started making quartz watches. Subsequently, all of Bulova’s electronic watches used quartz movements, although they kept selling them under the Accutron label. This can lead to confusion on the part of persons seeking to obtain a “real” Accutron. To avoid paying a tuning fork price for an Accutron with a quartz movement, the date code must be checked, except for 214s, 218s with a 4 o’clock stem and crown, 218 Travelers, 218 Astronaut IIs, and 218 Deep Seas, all of which are easily recognizable. Located on the back of the case, it consists of a letter followed by a number. The letter is the decade (M=1960s, N=1970s) and the number is the specific year within that decade. Therefore, an Accutron with a date code that falls within M0 and N6, inclusive, will have been manufactured with a tuning fork movement. Most with a code of N7 will also, but it is necessary to open the back and view the movement to be absolutely certain. An alternate method of determining if the movement is tuning fork or quartz requires that the movement is running and has a second hand. The second hand of the tuning fork movement will smoothly sweep around the dial, whereas the quartz movement will tick the seconds.
An Accutron with a 224 movement, which should be labeled “Accuquartz” on its dial, is a hybrid movement, with its timekeeping actually regulated by a quartz crystal rather than by the tuning fork itself. Many consider these to be collectible because they were only made for 5 years, resulting in a low total production number and corresponding rarity today. When Bulova ceased tuning fork movement production in 1977, they also stopped making components; however, recently manufactured Accutrons still came in for repair. It did not take long for them to run out of parts, and they started replacing tuning fork movements with quartz movements. More than 4 million tuning fork Accutrons were sold by the time production stopped in 1977.
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