Calling all Pocket Watch Buffs

That is in such nice condition, and a beautiful movement too. 😎

@DaveK ,

Thanks for that. I can say that in the 25 or so years I’ve owned it, it hasn’t been buffed. Or even USED for that matter. I cleaned it when I first bought it, but mostly, it has just sat.

What a hoot. I spent some time yesterday evening on Ebay looking at pocket watches. I put some in my watch list to observe their ultimate selling prices. The thought occurred to me that I wasn't seeing any hunter cased railroad watches. I had intended to come into this thread and inquire if hunter cases were not approved and received an answer before asking.

I suppose the hunter case wasn't approved because perhaps it was considered more fiddly and time consuming to access the time or else was a extra feature that could go haywire so was deemed unnecessary.

South Bend Watch Co
Circa 1912
16s Grade 229 "The Studebaker" 21j gold gilt inlay, beautiful, one of my favorite.
RR grade and approved

Yes, as soon as regulations were drawn up, Hunter cased watches were not included, but grandfathered in, and just as you state, ease of use and legibility were all that mattered not esthetics.

Pendent set was out, lever set was the standard, same reasoning....make it harder to accidently adjust the time

At one time, prior to about 1892, hunter cased watches that otherwise met the prevailing standards for railroad approved watches, could have been used. Hunter cased watches prevailed up until about 1870. In 1892, Webb Ball set out new standards for the roads he controlled. He disallowed hunter cases. Why? Not sure! But the crown was at the 3:00 position, not the 12:00 position, and you needed two hands to read the time. Many other railroad General Time inspectors followed suit, disallowing the hunter case. By about 1900, older railroaders who had used hunter cased watches were dying off or retiring. The hunter cased watch was not permitted for entry service. In addition, the smaller, slimmer 16-size models were becoming more popular, so hunter cased ones fell by the wayside. If a railroader had used a hunter cased watch while they were still accepted, that watch could be “grandfathered”, as long as it continued to perform to railroad standard. So, if you wanted a railroad standard watch in a hunter case, you would need to find the time service rules from a railroad that listed which hunter cased watches would have been permitted, and settle on one of those. Probably easier to look for, say, a Hamilton 993 which was the hunter cased version of the railroad approved Hamilton 992. Or maybe a Hamilton 941, or any one of a number of other models from other makers. These would be railroad GRADE, just not railroad APPROVED.

In 1903, two sons of the founder of the Studebaker (car) Co. bought the Columbus Watch Co. of Columbus, Ohio, and moved it the South Bend, Indiana. You can read about the South Bend Watch Co. here:

https://historymuseumsb.org/south-bend-watch-company/

The firm manufactured South Bend and Studebaker watches. By the early years of the 20th century, standards for railroad approved watches made it mandatory that railroad approved watches had to have the name of the actual manufacturer of the watch on the dial. Thereby, South Bend could not use the Studebaker name on the dials of its railroad watches. This handsome submission has all the obligatory properties required of a railroad watch, clearly engraved on the movement. Just when these requirements of a railroad watch became mandatory, I don’t know.

- 21 jewels
- Double roller
- Safety pinion
- Adjusted to 5 positions
- Adjusted for heat and cold.

Here is the skinny on this handsome submission.

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/southbend/753446

I just found that Pocket Watch Database and saved it to favorites yesterday. Great site.

You may have noticed that I use that site regularly. 😀 The old adage is that experts don’t know everything, but they know where to find answers to what they don’t know. 😉

Over decades, I have amassed a decent library covering the topic of watches and clocks. But with the advent of the internet and Google, I rarely have to refer to the library, now. More people should use these types of resources.

Vitreous Enamel Watch Dials

Followers of the threads on the Omega message board that pertain to antique watches, may notice that, whether they be wrist, or pocket watches, vitreous enamel dials seem to predominate on dials of very old watches. Very often, posters call these dials porcelain. Wrist and pocket watch dials such as mentioned, are not porcelain! Porcelain is an earthenware product. Vitreous enamel is basically glass.

(From the “pocket watch database.com)

“One of the common inaccuracies made by new collectors is (in the use of) the terminology porcelain dial, instead of enamel. While similarities are shared between the two materials, porcelain is a ceramic material made by firing a clay substance, while enamel is produced by firing powdered glass to a substrate material. During the traditional dial making process, a copper disk was used as a substrate for the dial. Enamel paste was then brushed onto the back of the dial, and enamel powder was applied to the front. As the dial was heated face-up (in an electric kiln), the enamel melted to produce a glossy white (or coloured) material (surface). This process is referred to as “vitreous enamelling”, from the Latin word “vitrium” meaning “glass”. When a dial sustains damage, the original copper plate is often visible in places where the (vitreous) enamel has chipped.”

Centuries ago, before the advent of the electric kiln, coke fired ovens were used to fire enamel. Fly ash was a serious problem in the era of the coke oven, resulting in a high percentage of spoiled material.

One of the beauties of a vitreous enamel dial is that they are impervious to ultraviolet light, contaminants in the air, chemicals, etc. etc. We often see watches that are hundreds of years old, and the vitreous enamel dials look like new. But being glass, vitreous enamel dials are brittle, and can be cracked or chipped from an impact. I have posted two before and after pictures showing a vitreous enamel watch dial that went through a house fire about 70 years ago, and the same dial after a superficial cleaning.



The term “double-sunk” is often applied to vitreous enamel dials. These dials comprise three disks, enamelled, fired, printed with numbers in vitreous enamel (black) by hand painting, stencilling, silk screened, or pad printed, disks then fired again, then soldered together. The dial pictured above is double-sunk. Single-sunk dial are seen, as well as triple-sunk. The production of vitreous enamel dials was labor intensive, expensive, and there was a lot of spoilage. But OMG, aren’t vitreous enamel dials gorgeous?

Different terms are used to describe lustre. “Waxy” (as with melamine dials), “vitreous” ( as in vitreous enamel dials), and “adamantine” (as in faceted gemstones). Vitreous enamel dials are said to have a “vitreous” lustre.

They also have a great (new) presence on Instagram https://instagram.com/pocketwatchdatabase?igshid=11vxfb6zrzw1e

My latest produced 992B movement circa 1968 with the last case style Hamilton produced, Style 17.

The M7M stamping pinpoint when the case was manufactured, 1967

Special order Masonic dial, single surface flat melamine construction, black not blued hands.

And what is surprising, no Hamilton name on the dial.

Handsome case design, introduced 1956.

RR grade but not RR approved

cool crown

The crown is called a “bar-over crown”. I have several Hamilton’s with that arrangement, on different Hamilton model cases. But I do not have a dial like that. Looks to be in over all excellent condition. This watch was bought by a non-railroader, who liked pocket watches. With the advent of the wrist watch, pocket watches gradually went out of favour. Soon after this watch was made, the earliest railroad approved wrist watches9 appeared, and that was the death knell of the railroad approved pocket watch. Very nice!

On the subject of Masonic pocket watches, the one that comes to mind is the Dudley Masonic pocket watch, pictured here. Two different dials featured on Dudley Masonic watches. The pictured movement is based on a 12-size Hamilton 910 or 912, but earlier Dudleys were often based on Waltham Colonial (14-size) movements.



If you are interested in the Dudley Watch Co., you can read about it here:

http://www.pocketwatchrepair.com/histories/dudley.html

Today's offering is a grubby old watch that I'm supposed repair for a friend. This one was at one time his grandfather's and has an unknown history before that.

It's an Elgin 7J, model 1, grade 12, Chas. Fargo, made around 1871. It's housed in a Keystone coin silver case. This one has a good balance and will run for a few seconds when gently shaken, so it should just need a cleaning and maybe a new mainspring. The case is missing a crystal and could use a good polishing.

(Excerpted form Michael Harrolds book on the History of the America Watchmaking Industry.)

J C Adams organized the National Watch Co., at Elgin, Ill., in 1864. (It went on to become the Elgin Watch Co.) He went on to form 3 other watch companies in Illinois. Cornell, Illinois, and Peoria. Over time, six other watch companies were established in Illinois. While New England was considered the major watchmaking area, Illinois became a major source of watches. A large proportion of which were railroad grade and railroad approved. Illinois produced more conventional jewelled watches than any other state, and had a good share of the inexpensive watch market as well.

Here’s the skinny on @Waltesefalcon ‘s Elgin. The tech sheet lists this Elgin as having a “coarse” train which refers to the number of beats per hour of the balance wheel. A “coarse” train beats 16,000 bph or less, by some references. At 4.5 beats per second, the watch would beat 16,200 bph. At 4 beats per second, it would beat 14,400 bph. So, I don’t know if there is an exact definition of a “coarse” train. At 5 beats per second, a watch would beat 18,000 bph, and 432,000 beats in a day! Watches are amazing!

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/elgin/140149

Rockford
16s 21j RG 545 circa 1903
RR grade and approved
Blued hands




Such a popular watch Company they named a TV show after it......70 years later!

Yet another venerable Illinois watch company. By early in the 20th century, it became mandatory that a watch movement must have the “double roller”, “5-positions”, “21-jewels”, engraved on the plates. Heat & cold are not mentioned. I see the balance wheel is bi-metallic (temperature compensated), and blued steel, Breguet style hairspring. The attached data sheet indicates it is also adjusted for isochronism. Looks like a mint double-sunk, vitreous enamel dial. Sharp!

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/rockford/620349

Also, by this point the grade number had to be on the movement, too

I like that hand painted dial on the Rockford, it has a lot of character.

I don’t think it’s hand painted but it does have character.