Hands-On: An Astonishing Collection Of Vintage Bulgari Ladies’ Watches For Sale In Downtown NYC

By Cara Barrett

Bvlgari is a word most often associated with jewelry, snakes, and the Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater. But what some of you might not know is that Bvlgari has, for many years, made (and continues to make) one of the most iconic vintage ladies’ watches in history – the Tubogas.

You are likely familiar with the Serpenti watches that are also currently in production (see my review of last year’s here). The Serpenti and Tubogas go hand in hand, as the first record of the Tubogas watch is from the 1940s, when the Italian jeweler released a serpent-form wristwatch that coiled around the wrist, with the movement concealed in the head of the snake. The tubular design soon became one of Bvlgari’s most iconic designs ever produced. Today Bvlgari still makes both Serpenti and Tubogas watches (the latter as “Serpenti Tubogas”).

The Tubogas design was inspired by the production of flexible gas tubing used in the 1920s and automotive exhaust pipes – just another example of how watches and cars are forever linked to one another. The structure of the Tubogas is created by first making a coiled form out of copper or wood, and then tightly wrapping interlocking gold strips around the mould so that no soldering is required in the process. After the entire piece is constructed, the interior form is either melted with acid or pulled out, leaving a perfectly formed coil that is incredibly resilient and strong.

For the movements, Bvlgari turned to great makers like Audemars Piguet, Piaget, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Vacheron Constantin. These watches enjoyed their greatest popularity in the 1950s and continued to be made through the 1970s. Each watch head was different, depending on the decade, and varied from round to oval, octagonal, or square. These watches were produced in very small batches and it is not uncommon to stumble across a unique combination (such as the Jaeger-LeCoultre brick-shaped, link-bracelet version you see here).

The Tubogas watches you see here are in partnership with Vacheron Constantin and Jaeger-LeCoultre. All feature double signatures on the dial, Bvlgari and VC or JLC stamps, and are manual-winding movements (hallelujah!). In fact, Vacheron Constantin provided movements to Bvlgari …read more