C
ChronoCache
Bulova
B
Ahead with
the CURV
ulova earlier this year expanded its already enviable litany of
“firsts” when it debuted its CURV Chronograph, very likely the
first curve-cased quartz chronograph wristwatch. Recall that
in 1926 Bulova created the first true advertisement heard on the thenfledgling technology called radio. Then, fifteen years later Bulova again
led the pack with the very first television commercial. It was an ad that
aired on a New York station on July 1, 1941, just before a baseball
game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. The
commercial featured a clock and a map of the United States with a
voice exclaiming, “America runs on Bulova Time.”
Bulova’s CURV is a set of twelve chronograph watches, each made
with the firm’s proprietary curved chronograph caliber, itself an evolution
of the high-frequency Bulova Precisionist calibers that debuted six years
ago. These calibers operate with a frequency far higher than what is
typical for quartz movements (262 kilohertz vs. 32 kilohertz), enabling
greater accuracy and creating a sweep seconds hand that essentially
mimics the seconds hand on a mechanical timepiece.
The watch’s namesake curve is made possible by the construction
of both the case and the movement, the latter being a particularly interesting design that required the firm to carefully bend the movement’s
baseplate, with all its components expertly re-arranged to conform to
the CURV’s case shape.
70 | AboutTime Magazine