Bulova to Reissue the Pure ’70s ‘Stars and Stripes’ Watch

Hopefully it's available for longer than one year this time

August 22, 2017 9:00 am

“It turns your wrist into an all-weather, 24-hour information center.”

That’s one tagline for Bulova’s 1970 Special Edition Chronograph C, otherwise known as the “Stars and Stripes,” which was just updated and re-released. It was available for one year during its first run, only later gaining popularity — which makes it prime for a comeback.

The enduring stainless-steel ticker features striking red hands over a blue-and-white dial. It is the third timepiece in the company’s Archive Series, under which they reissue old favorites. The first were replicas of the chronograph worn on the moon during the 1971 Apollo 15 mission. While that’s an impressive history, with the Chronograph C we’re getting something a non-astronautical wrist could use: colors.

Chronograph C (2 images)

Not to say this watch is more beauty than brawn. The standard high-performance Bulova quartz movement (with 262 kHz vibrational frequency) runs — in addition to the three main hands — three sub-dials: a sweeping second hand, a 60-second and a 60-minute.

Updates include new sub-dials at 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock, along with a bump in case size from 43mm to 46mm. But as Worn & Wound noted back in March when the release was announced, the watch seems smaller than others of the same size due to the lugless design.

If you pick up one of these patriotic $750 timepieces, you’ll get a stainless-steel mesh bracelet and a blue leather strap to mix it up. As for the “all-weather” proclamation from the original advertisement: it’s also water resistant up to 50 meters.

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