The Original Vintage Jay Ward Character Watches

It's always time for character watches...Watches with Character. 

Vintage Jay Ward Character watches

Jay Ward watches including Ape, Boris Badenov, Budweiser, Bullwinkle J. Moose, Buster Keaton, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, Hoppity Hooper, Horse & Nell Fenwick, Jay T Ward, Model T Roadster, Natasha Fatale, Rocky J Squirrel, Shep, Shaft, Snidely Whiplash & Nell Fenwick, Snidely Whiplash, Super Chicken, W.C. Fields Character Watches. 

 

 In 1969, American creator and producer Jay T. Ward (September 20, 1920 – October 12, 1989) set out to create the Bullwinkle wristwatch. Ward always pursued quality and up till now most character watches were lower grade watches usually made for children. 

Thankfully for us, Ward, 

true to character wanted to produce quality, high grade watches so he used 17 jewel Buren watches, a division of Hamilton Watch Company. These were shock and water resistant with a sweep second hand along with hand painted metal dials, each with five to eight different colors (Shaft is only three colors) on some of the later fully painted dials which also included 25 jewel Buren automatic movements. 

These amazing, manual labor-intensive high-quality watches were only produced for a few years which only adds to their desirability.

   

 Beginning in 1969, Jay Ward placed ads in magazines to sell both 

his Bullwinkle Moose and Dudley Do-Right watches for $25 each. Below is a full page add in Life magazine.  Bullwinkle is depicted with an American Indian feather headdress and called "the Chief", the logo of Jay Ward's horse stable and racing team at the time. As noted in 'The Moose that Roared', page 305, "Reaction was sensational: almost overnight every last of the timepieces sold out".

Here we have an example of the first "production" Bullwinkle in five colors. 

Each watch was either gold or silver tone with matching tone for the numbers & hands including a second hand. Each marked Buren, 17 jewel, 1969 (some early ones have no date) & "Jay Ward Productions" and these original ones came with expansion bands as noted in the above ad.

 Here we have an example of the first "production" Dudley Do-Right in five colors. Each marked Buren, 17 jewel, 1969 (some early ones have no date) & "Jay Ward Productions" and these original ones also came with expansion bands as noted in the above ad.

These may have come in Buren boxes with these original expansion bands.

 

 

 

You would cut out your order form, fill it out and mail it in. As they progressed their selling process, they would send you back a post card (as seen here on the right) stating they were working on your order and when ready, they'd send your watch. Some with boxes but later they came in plastic sleeves with warranty and oftentimes along with a promotional mini poster of Bullwinkle which you could use to order a larger matching poster. 

 

 

  

Here is an example of Shep in the original plastic with original band, Bullwinkle poster ad order form and warranty that Jay Ward would have shipped you directly.

Note: 

This mini poster order form could be used to order the exact larger poster. It showed Bullwinkle playfully imitating the April 1972 Cosmopolitan centerfold of movie star Burt Reynolds that was all the talk at the time. 

Q&Q also produced a watch based on this poster pose, see my other Jay Ward blog.

Wards wristwatch sales success helped convince him to open his specialty character shop. In 1971, the Dudley Do-Right Emporium opened on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles California allowing Ward to sell his product line directly to the public which meant expanding wristwatch selection to 12 character watches as seen in this ad selling each watch for $14.95 now.

 You could still get Bullwinkle Moose and Dudley Do-Right of course, but now he added Boris Badenov, George of the Jungle, Hoppity Hooper, Horse and Nell, Natasha Fatale, Rocky J, Shep, Super Chicken and finally Buster Keaton and WC Fields which Ward owned the rights to. These watches all had the same gold or silver tone cases with matching tone numbers & hands including second hands, marked 17 jewels and have the date, "Jay Ward Prod" and the name of the character on them (Bullwinkle & Dudley do not have their names on them). These now came with "Chrome, Corfam straps" (synthetic leather developed by DuPont)

 

 Note: i do have a few original gold bezel watches still in the package with silver tone numbers and proper gold tone hands so they didn't ALWAYS follow silver with silver, gold with gold rule, but its usually the case. This was all manual painting and conversion, it wasn't exact.

 

  

Ward then started his own product catalog which meant expanding his watch line to 15 different character watches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He added  

Ape, 

Snidely Whiplash and 

Snidely and Nell 

in the ad pictured to the right. Again these came with "Chrome, Corfam straps" (synthetic leather developed by DuPont).

 

 

  In a later catalog (1972) pictured below, you'll note there are only 12 listed (plus the "plain automatic" 17 jewel Bullwinkle). There is no reference to Horse and Nell, Rocky J, Snidely Whiplash, Snidely and Nell, and Super Chicken but he does mention Budweiser and Shaft for the first time.

AND on the next page of the same catalog (Note: I have two of these catalog references and one has the "next page as described below and one doesn't), he references the "plain automatic" Bullwinkle again and defines it as a "mind boggling five color Bullwinkle......on the dial of this 25-jewel, self-winding, water and shock resistant watch". 

SADLY the pic (in both catalogs i have) shows a dial marked 17 jewel AND you'll note the other dial difference is the numbers where it only has 3,6,9,& 12 showing and gold marks for the other numbers. 

 

The second entry on the same page references the "Fancy Full-Dial Automatic" and defines them as "...its got a very fancy full-color scenic picture on it! No numbers, just picture! otherwise its the same 25-jewel, self-winding, water and shock resistant watch as the other one".

These are the beautiful fully painted dials, 25 jewel automatics and also where he adds the George & Ursula watch 

AND 

the amazing character watch of Jay Ward himself and a mention of "Mod Bands".

 

 

Note: The 25 jewel options (including the fully painted dials) are always automatic and have gold tone cases with gold or black hands and the dials are slightly larger then the 17 jewel dials. They also have the date, "Jay Ward Prod" and the name of the character on them except Bullwinkle & Dudley who never have their names on them. 

ALL Jay Ward watches should be 17 or 25 jewel Standard Time movements.

The only fully painted dial 17 jewel watches are Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Budweiser, J.F. Kennedy, Model T Roadster, Shaft, W.C. Fields & Wilt Chamberlain as shown in the ad below AND these are sometimes in silver tone along with gold tone.

 

In 1972, the Dudley Do-Right Emporium ran this short lived, rare ad featuring NON Jay Ward characters as watches expanding their selection to 21 different watches. The previous ad (shown above) already added to the list Buster Keaton and WC Fields not fully painted dials, but now they added J.F. Kennedy, Wilt Chamberlain, Budweiser, Shaft (for the movie), a fully painted W.C. Fields, & Model T Ford Roadster.  This amazing ad proved my memory correct all these years later, what a great find! 

 

NOTE: While most of the watches in this ad are "more " common, sadly, I have never seen a Wilt Chamberlain watch, but i know at least one exists! I have seen one J.F. Kennedy,  three Shaft and six W.C. Fields watches (this is the bright yellow with his slogan as pictured in the ad below, not just his face as show in the previous ad). Also note, if you examine the picture closely, you'll notice that the watch hands & even the watch bezel on the Chamberlain watch are fake and doesn't match the others most likely due to them not having a ready assembled watch at the time.

 

 

Here is a picture of most of the different original watch bands (excluding the expansion band type (see above Buren boxed pic for that one & excluding plain Corfam with NO holes & excluding the 70's MOD band which was listed in the later catalog (see several above ads) that came in white, red, green, blue, yellow (sadly these are unmarked just plastic full color wide bands)).  Most watches came with the phony leather Corfam straps (always black) in the racing style, usually with either large holes or the smaller holes, sometimes without any holes. Some later watches came with the plastic/vinyl colored bands such as the red, yellow or green ones shown below. 

 

 Some of the later watches even had "Jay Ward Productions" stamped on the back of the watch as this example shows.  Usually you see this on the common Budweiser and common Model T Ford watches. Note: This 1318 Buren screw down back is just one of at least three different types of proper case backs.

  A slow labor intensive process with hand painted dials along with the watch market changing to quartz watches AND with limited Hamilton/Buren watches to use for conversion, this above ad marks the end of these amazing Jay Ward Original Character watch offerings. 

Emporium catalogs going out to customers at this time would often have hand written notes in them stating which watches were still available and even a change in pricing as noted in an above ad with crossed out prices. 

 

 NOTE: In several ads previous, Ward's 1972 Dudley Do-Right Emporium catalogue references a "George & Ursula" fully painted dial and shows a drawing of the dial (see below for clarity), but as mentioned above, SADLY production of these hand painted dials were coming to a close which means very few of these last catalog items exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do know that there is one George & Ursula dial that exists and the owner and fellow Jay Ward enthusiast gave me permission to post this incredible dial (right) that they have. Thanks, JYoung! What an amazing dial!

 

 

 

  

Today Jay Ward's high-quality watches with his beloved characters and short production run are still highly sought after making many  hard to find today.

 I hope you'll enjoy the below examples:

  Vibrant five color rare 17 jewel, highly intelligent Ape reading Darwin.

Pottsylvania super spy antagonist Boris Badenov 17 jewel

Strong and jungle-wise George of the Jungle 17 jewel

Ever plucky Hoppity Hooper 17 jewel

Sometimes his purple tie is blue

  Intelligent Horse & the ever stuck on horse Nell Fenwick 17 jewel

  Master of disguise Pottsylvania spy & co-antagonist Natasha Fatale 17 jewel

Upstanding & slightly naive Rocky J. Squirrel 17 jewel

"Great big peanut-loving poochie" Shep 17 jewel

Sometime he is a whiter grayish pink

Vibrant six color Henry Cabot Henhouse III alter-ego rare Super chicken 17 jewel

Rare six color Super Chicken, blue instead of purple 17 jewel

vibrant international villain Snidely Whiplash 17 jewel

 Rare Snidely Whiplash & Nell Fenwick 17 jewel

   Then we have the beautiful 25 jewel and/or fully painted editions.  

(all 25 jewel should be automatic)

 

Rare Boris Badenov 25 jewel automatic  

Always well-intentioned Bullwinkle J. Moose 17 jewel fully painted dial with seven colors!

Here is a silver tone case mint example of always good natured Bullwinkle J. Moose 17 jewel fully painted dial with seven colors!

Over-trusting Dudley Do-Right 17 jewel fully painted dial with seven colors!

Note on his jacket it shows 17 jewel.

SUPER RARE and unusual Dudley Do-Right 17 jewel WHITE painted dial with black numbers and black hands.

SUPER RARE Dudley Do-Right fully painted dial with seven colors 25 jewel automatic

Note on his jacket it shows 25 jewel.

George of the Jungle 25 jewel automatic

Super rare Hoppity Hopper 25 jewel automatic with purple tie

Horse & Nell Fenwick 25 jewel automatic

Jay T. Ward made a character watch of himself too!

Rare Jay Ward 25 jewel automatic! I know of seven of these, not the rarest Jay Ward character watch but up there. NO its not the rarest!!

Marked "A Jay Ward Watch" fully painted with eight colors!

Super rare Natasha Fatale 25 jewel automatic

Super rare Shep 25 jewel automatic

Super rare Rocky J. Squirrel 25 jewel automatic

 

and finally the miscellaneous ones: 

 

Budweiser 17 jewel fully painted dial, very common. 

This is also listed on my Food Advertising blog entry.

Buster Keaton 17 jewel 

Super rare Buster Keaton 25 Jewel automatic 

Model T Roadster 17 jewel fully painted dial with six colors, very common

 

Rare Shaft (for the movie) 17 jewel fully painted but only three colors 

WC Fields 17 jewel 

WC Fields 17 jewel unusual gold dial

WC Fields 17 jewel fully painted dial with seven colors

When you bought a watch from the Emporium, it may have come with this very nice box with a silk screen picture of Bullwinkle Moose stating "An Honest to Bullwinkle Product....Jay Ward Prods, Inc."

Later in the 1970's, Jay Ward created the rare quartz with calendar Bullwinkle and the quartz with calendar Dudley Do-Right, Hamilton movements with the box.

The emporium was open for 34 years and later sold J. Ward character watches by Bradley (very few of these), A & M Hollywood (more but not a lot of these), and Fossil line of watches (see my Vintage Jay Ward watches by Bradley blog) with Ward's beloved characters on them among many other items including these beautiful, rare enamel pins in the rare silk screen Bullwinkle box.

NOTE: In the 2002 Dudley Do-Right Emporium catalog advertised standalone dials for sale for $10 each. This is one reason why there are still many standalone dials that come up for sale even today 50 plus years later then when they were created. By 2002, the Emporium was selling the battery powered quartz Fossil line of watches, the hand painted dials ended back in the early 1970s. Dials were being made to swap out of the Buren watches but then the Buren's ended so they had dials lying around. THIS is also why you'll sometimes see QUALITY issues (smaller images or no Jay Ward production mark or scratches not made by watch hands etc.) with these standalone dials or even dials converted into watches by avarice dial owners. I still prize stand alone dials and frame them.

You could even get an aircraft kit from the Emporium catalog. The Super Chicken N501BD aircraft kit FOR only $2600! FAA APPROVED.....that Jay Ward was amazing!

 

 

For more information on Jay Ward: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Ward

For more information on the Dudley Do-Right Emporium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudley_Do-Right_Emporium

 

For more Information on Watches see:

The National Watch and Clock Museum:  https://nawcc.org/index.php/museum

The West Coast Clock & watch museum is located at the Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum http://www.agsem.org
 

Any thoughts can be emailed to characterwatchtime@gmail.com

How much is your character watch worth???

For Legal info: https://characterwatchtime.blogspot.com/2019/03/legal-info.html

It's always time for character watches...Watches with Character.