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Marvin-

 Bulova confused things by eventually introducing the "Accutron Quartz"
which is a modern quartz watch that simply uses the Accutron trademark, but
it is not an Accutron per se.

 No crystal, the real Accutron uses two tuning forks, driven by a
one-transistor oscillator at 360Hz, which is conveniently mechanically
divided for minutes and hours. I'm sure the oscillators aged as well, but
again, mine's aged out by now. Apparently they built a first-class
traditional watch with generous use of jeweled surfaces inside so that wear
should not be an issue. The resonance of the tuning forks provides the
timing standard, the tone is inconveniently about midway between F and
F-sharp. The second hand also sweeps, as opposed to ticks, because of this.
Counterfeit watches fitted with a quartz movement will "tick" from their
stepper motors, although it is not fair to call them all counterfeit since
Bulova once "repaired" some old Accutrons by replacing the movements with
quartz ones.

 On the downside, someone who is not used to that high-pitched little whine
may indeed threaten to rip your head off at night if you always wear your
watch. In a quiet room they also turn dresser tops, etc., into sounding
boards. A good test for your hearing!

 They're available on eBay these days at 1/4 the price that they were
pre-internet. But, there are a lot of "counterfeit" ones cobbled together by
frauds there, too. Caveat emptor.

   

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