Some more great finds
It’s been a strange summer so far. Non-watch projects have kept me away from writing about watches. I have been reading a lot about watches, as usual, but trying to buy fewer watches and even trying to sell a few! That has been harder than expected..I continue to work with my collection, seeking the right straps and getting repairs done. Oh, the ups and downs of watch repair.
I’ve read some thought-provoking articles on some of the major watch sites recently that have made me think about the watch community now and collecting in general. There is always another watch to discover—either new or old—to keep me excited. As always, too, its interesting to see what motivates a person to get a certain watch.
One article was by Ariel Adams of A Blog To Watch about buying for yourself instead of others. He talked about how your collecting/purchasing changes as your phases of life change. I was also recently getting into watch reviews and accompanying comments and being struck by the concept of how people apply value to a watch in its specs, materials, or design. We have trouble valuing the intangible things like the emotion a design evokes. If you like it, get it! Don’t worry if someone else doesn’t think it is a good value compared to another watch.
Its time to get back in the saddle and talk about watches some more! I recently stumbled onto a nice late 90s Marine Star online at Goodwill and decided to rescue it. I also have a couple of other Marine Stars that I have owned for a while but not written about on the blog. My 90s Marine Star niche collection is one of the biggest groups I have. Even though I have slowed watch purchases, I have not stopped acquiring!
I’ll say it again; they don’t make watches like these 90s Marine Stars anymore. Thank God some may say, but, man were they fun riding the Tag Heuer wave. Quartz was king still with the mainstream.
1996 Cutie – 98C08
Wow! This one really got me. Its a great example of the 90s Marine Star genre, if I can use that word? Slim dressy diver with great details. I call this early because it is 1996, before things got heavier and rounder in overall shapes and edges. If you look at some of my other early ones in the MS Part 1 post, they are pretty light and slim. This one tilts a bit more toward sporty than dressy, too. Man is it light and slim!
It measures in at 37.5mm by 42.5mm and just over 9mm thick. The light bracelet tapers from 20mm to 18mm. I’ve never seen another with this type of 3-section bracelet. It has a mixed vertical/horizontal basket pattern. The inner section with horizontal folded pieces and the outer sections are vertical and solid.
I like so many things about this design. The whole thing is very delicate in a way? If this was made today it would be bigger and heavier as were the later 1998-2000 Marine Stars even though they remained around 38mm. I like the 4 o’clock crown, the funky unidirectional bezel, the charcoal starburst dial, the fine day/date type. It is quite different from the bulk of my 90s MS collection which, you could say, is more gaudy a la S/el!
There is so much going on with the design cues here; Lots of things from various Tag Heuer and Bretiling watches of the times. But there is such a mixture that you can’t say it is a copy of any one watch? That is the cool thing about most of these 90s Bulovas; so much variety and imagination. There are a lot of Tag Heuer 4000/6000 influences with the bezel and bracelet. The mix of dots and pill shapes for hour markers is interesting. Thankfully. here there was not the Mercedes hands, but a more Breitling or Seiko look. Also the second sweep is not a lollipop, but an arrow.
What is interesting about this one, too, is I actually had two of them for a short period. This was the first one I found and it had a problem with the date wheel. My regular watchmaker fixed it easily. Not too long after I got this one I got a second. At the time I was not sure what I was buying because the photos were so bad and there was no info in the online listing. Clearly someone was selling a watch they knew nothing about. It was also on a weird velcro sport strap. I was surprised when it arrived and was another 98C08. It was also engraved. It had been a award for service in a community group. But, it was in like-new condition.
I decided to keep this one because it had the original bracelet. The other I put on a new Strapsco-type 18mm jubilee bracelet I had been given by someone. I had to shape the end links to fit the curve of the case/lug. It worked out pretty well except for a few scratches on the links! I gave it to a friend who I have known since the 90s and who has a few watches including a 90s Tag Heuer 1500.
1988 92D45 Swiss ETA
When I saw this on eBay, I did not know what to think? It was a departure from any Marine Star that I had seen before. I thought it was pretty crazy! You could sayit is an awkward looking watch? On closer examination of photos, it showed some serious wear. But, it was mostly pretty good and so unique I had to bid for it.
It’s different in a lot of ways from the bulk of my Marine Star collection. For one is from the ’80s. I called the last one “early”, so this is really early. It may be my oldest Marine Star? The overall look is just completely different. The round, and I mean round, 37mm case shape has short lugs that just stick straight out. This is not the organic Capt. Nemo style of the 90s. The bezel is like nothing I have seen on a Marine Star. The watch measures just under 44mm lug-to-lug and is 9mm thick.
In several places the flat gold coating has worn off, like the bezel and the bracelet, but because the design is so unique, I hardly notice. The bracelet is only 17mm wide and does not taper.
The main design impact of this watch is the dial and day/date system. Its nuts! The movement is an ETA 955. The date is displayed in a no-frame three-date window at 6 o’clock with the center date (today’s date) over a tiny red arrow. Then for some reason there are 6 other date window cutouts rotated around the dial showing other dates on the date wheel?! Why? Just because. Then the highlight is the day display. Each day has its own gold pill shaped plate around the dial. Each of these has a circle cut on each side. The current day is indicated by red dots showing in the cutouts.
I have seen some similar displays on some Camel Trophy promotion watches made in Germany from the late ’80s early ’90s. They also had dots rotating around the dial. I believe they had ETA 555 movements.
Other details about the dial are different, too. With the small model number down at bottom of dial there is “Swiss Mvmt”, and water resistance is in 330 ft instead of 100m.
It has sort of tall coin-edge bezel with a rounded, sectioned bead around the top. This bead stand above the level of the crystal, protecting it. The bezel is as deep as the mid case. The case and bezel are both 37mm, but the bezel is so tall its easy to grab. The bezel is one of my favorite things about this watch. The crown guards are tiny. The bracelet is made up of solid H-links connected by folded center section pieces.
This one brings to mind the topic I have discussed before; where do all the 90s Marine Stars come from? Bulova actually did produce some Marine Stars in Switzerland, but why and when I am not sure about. Part of it might have been determined by region they were sold in? Some say Swiss on the dial because of the movement, but were made in in Hong Kong or Japan. Some of the Swiss-labeled examples I have are of a higher finish quality. Depending on the years, the quality of manufacturing varies.
1998 98G19, Classic Two Tone
Now for this little white-dialed 37mm 98G19 with dauphine-style hands. It is classic 90s dressy diver Marine Star. I had not seen this until it popped up on the Goodwill site. It was a rescue operation, again. The condition of my MS collection ranges from pretty rough to like-new. This one needed some help. I knew it needed a crown, at least and that it wasn’t running. Overall, it looked pretty good? I got in more of a bidding war than I expected, but I didn’t have any with this style of hands and I thought it looked great!
It had a little wear on the bracelet an bezel, but I figured it was still pretty nice because it wasn’t being used without a crown! My regular watchmaker was out of the country/ out of contact, so I found a stand-in who is quite a character and mostly works on quartz watches. He also happens to be a Seiko dealer. Anyway, it needed a crown, stem, and a new movement! The battery had leaked,the watch no being used, probably being in there for over 20 years…So, it ended up being a more expensive rescue than I hoped.
This watchmaker had a Miyota movement on-hand so it was easy to just replace it. I did not ask about repairing the old movement. The replacement crown is not like the original, but I can live with that. It is gold plated so it looks close. In the only other image I have seen of this model the crown was maybe more tapered and had a black circle on it. Very unusual. The triangle on the bezel is just painted black, too.
I am happy to have rescued this cool and unusual watch. I have only seen two examples of this model. As with most of these Marine Stars of this type, they each have unique design features. Even though at first they seem very similar there is a seemingly endless variety of case, bezel, dial, and bracelet combinations. It is not easy to find donor examples for spares. For example you can’t mix and match bracelets because they each have different shaped links and integrated lugs.
This one is sort of a cross between a Tag Heuer 4000 and a S/el. Then there is the Omega influence in the bracelet and those crazy dauphine hands which hearken back to an earlier vintage. These white textured dials are a staple of the 1998 group. This one has a center sector with vertical herring bone stripes.
The Mysterious Unisex Marine Stars
As if the 90s Marine Stars were not bonkers enough, I have discovered several types of a sub group I just don’t know how to explain. Two I covered in Part 1; one was a 1995 98B50. It has a jewellery like bracelet but a normal clasp. The other was the 90C78, a decidedly men’s-looking watch with a jewellery like bracelet and small clasp. The three covered here here are sized between 33.5mm and 37mm and have what I call jewellery bracelet clasp or butterfly clasp. I know one of them, at least, has a “women’s” smaller size match. They all may have had matching men’s and women’s sizes in the 90s catalogs, but since I cannot find these catalogs, I cede to those with more expertise.
Interestingly, they all have Swiss quartz movements and are of pretty nice quality as far as this price range goes. They seems to blur the boundaries of sport watch, dress watch and jewelry as well as men’s and women’s watch differences.
Its very interesting to me because now in recent years, say 2020-2025, the topic of women wearing bigger watches, especially tool watches, is common conversation. I am sure, throughout history, some women have always wanted watches comparable to men’s watches as for size. I don’t recall the term unisex as being mainstream in 1995?
At the same time, most watch wearers, male, female or other, are now more confident in seeking out watches to fit their wrist regardless of size trends. As soon as there is a trend to make smaller sizes of popular watches available as seen lately in dive and tool watches, there comes a counter request for bigger sizes. It must be one of the most difficult decisions for watch makers now to decide sizing new models?
As for 90s Marine Stars, there are other factors that contribute to the confusion. One is that Tag Heuer was famously known for offering three or four sizes of its main lines during the 80s and 90s. Since Bulova was mimicking TH, you will see some Marine Star styles in men’s as well as smaller women’s sizes. You can look at some photos and not know which is which at first glance. For other styles, there is clear differences between the two even though they share the main design features. Lastly, many people selling preowned watches do not even state the size or men’s/women’s category in sale listings. Some listings even list small men’s watches as women’s watches.
When I am uncertain about the men’s/women’s category of a watch listing of an old Marine Star where the size is not stated, I look at the proportion of the hand length to the overall case size. The length of the hands generally tells me if the watch is a small women’s watch.
Most of the 90s Marine Stars were only 37mm anyway. Dress watches are smaller normally, and these I call dressy divers partly because they are small. They exist more for aesthetics than sport utility. I have read that entering the late 1990s, there was a trend for women’s watches to get bigger, so it makes sense that my mystery category were intended to be women’s watches, too.
Every individual has a sliding scale for what they consider masculine or feminine. When you think about it, sometimes it is just silly trying to label a watch for a certain sex because society and style is constantly changing and anyone can have any number of reasons for liking a particular watch. It is nice to think that any one watch could be considered both feminine and masculine at the same time? I think many of these Marine Stars of the 90s were ahead of their time as watches that could be called unisex.
After writing all this I’m pretty sure that these were intended to be men’s watches but unconsciously they are also watches women of the late 90s might have selected. It just shows the shakeup that the Tag Heuer S/el caused. After they were released Bulova took that design language on into wilder designs with many of their Marine Stars.
SE-1251 Year Unknown
This little guy is probably the most unisex of of the last three I am discussing here. Its only 33.5mm with a 17mm bracelet. It is interesting trying to figure out what was going through the minds of the designers at the time? No diver-style rotating bezel here. This is the only Marine Star I own without a rotating bezel.
It has a Swiss Ronda movement, a 100m water resistance rating and a screw-down crown. This one has the butterfly clasp. It is of very nice build quality and came to me in very good condition. It makes for a great dress watch.
It has a type of case back I associate with the early 2000s. This is rare among all the ’90s marine Stars I have? It also uses the “updated” Bulova tuning fork logo. I don’t know what year it is? It could be 90s? This type of model number on the back different than most in my collection and has me baffled.
1994 98B17 Grey Dial
This is an interesting watch among the Marine Stars for reasons I have mentioned above, but also for the dial and bezel. Not many of my Marine Stars have a grey dial? This is what I would call a metallic grey? Also, the hour markers are not filled, but show the dial through the outlines. There are tiny lume dots outside the markers. Overall it is a subdued feel. Simple thin baton hands. Mine has a nick in the crystal up by the 12 o’clock position, but I have not been tempted to replace it yet.
The case is only 35mm, but it seems bigger? The bracelet is 18mm wide. The gold bezel with big numbers and rounded edge is the star. I should give this watch a nice polish. This old gold plating takes on a darker color over the years. This design has less detail than most of my Marine Stars and lots of soft corners. The design decisions with this one have taken it further out of a tool/dive direction. It slides into that dressy jewelry niche. It has 90s bling, but in a subtle way.
1996 Gold 98B53
I’ll wrap this post up with some gold. This is the biggest at almost 38mm. The bracelet is 18mm, but looks smaller with no taper right off the round case. Two-tone dressy diver in all its glory. The rotating bezel has big organic gold tabs and numbers at five minute intervals but not marks. Very Capt. Nemo Diver feel. The sunburst gold dial is awesome! It steals the show and makes the light green lume pop.
The squelette-style (cathedral) hand set give it a vintage feel. I only know of one other 90s Marine Star with these hands. The tiny clasp relegates this one to the dress watch role. Get too active with this and it might pop open! Because this type of bracelet is an open loop, you have to rest the watch on something to snap the clasp. It takes some practice. It is easy to drop a watch with this type of clasp.
Final Thoughts
I had planned to include a couple more models in this post, but it got longer and morphed into more of a discussion of unisex dress watches. I’ll just have to do another post to cover them. Writing this one made me think again about how unique these watches are in the history of the mall watch. They don’t make ’em like this any more.
I don’t see these old Bulovas in the wild. I don’t even see Tag Heuer S/el models out there. It is an acquired taste. I was just thinking these 90s Marine Stars would be great at a Steam Punk party? I heard it said lately the the 90s are trending again, so maybe we’ll see some of the bling and organic shapes come back?
Also I have come to realize that the ’90s Tag Heuers and Bulovas really ventured into the unisex world without even realizing it, maybe? Sometimes a person just wants a smaller or bigger watch, for whatever reason. Get what you want.
If you don’t want to spring for a neo-vintage Tag Heuer you can get the same feel with a Marine star!
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