I remember the first time I saw the vintage Bulova Chronograph C (picture below, courtesy of our friends at Fratello Watches), also known as the ?Stars & Stripes.? It was summer 2015 and I was meandering through an online sales forum, where I saw this giant hunk of steel, red, white, and blue staring up at me from the computer screen for $1,800. ?This has to be a fake,? I told myself. ?There?s no way Bulova would have produced this watch.? And so I moved on, checking out a few more listings before moving on with my day.

A few weeks later I was attending a midsummer get together of ?watch guys? in New York; it was a casual lunch, with each patron bringing a watch or two to show off, a chance to trade some knowledge and drink a beer together. Soon after we sat down, one of the men sitting across from me pulls back his cuff and reveals the very same watch I spotted online the few weeks prior. ?Is that the Bulova ?Stars & Stripes"?? He said it was. ?Did you get that off this forum not long ago"? He said he did. ?That?s a real watch, as in, Bulova produced it"? He said they did, in 1970 ? for only a single year, to be exact. If you?re curious, that same-model watch, in a decent condition, now lists at lowest for $4,000. This price inflation not only surprised me ? someone who passed on the piece only to be later proven wrong ? but it seems to have also surprised Bulova, this major increase in interest in what historically was a small and unsuccessful prod...