Calling all Pocket Watch Buffs

Yes, Guido and his friends can be very persuasive.

I received a call recently, from a member of the clock repair fraternity, locally, who I have helped with some of his clock projects, in the past. Particularly, lathe work for which he is not equipped. He received a call from an acquaintance (lady) friend who knows he does clocks. She has two watches that she wants serviced. He recommended me.

The hunter cased watch reminds her boy friend of one his family had, stolen, many years ago. She bought it from an antique store from out of town. The open-faced one is a family watch that he quite liked, so she asked me to service them for her.

The hunter cased one looked for all the world like the seller had tried to made it run by flooding it with oil! The case is gold filled, and is in beautiful condition, and the vitreous enamel dial is close to perfect. Normally, I won’t work on 7-jewel stuff because they are often badly worn. But from the outside, this one looked like it had seen little use in its 120 years of existence. My assessment was correct. Cleaned it, fitted a new mainspring, done! This one is a 6-size Waltham. It would have been a ladie’s watch in 1900.




The open-faced one is a Waltham 1899 model, 15-jewels, 16-size, gold filled case showing a bit of brass. But it is close to a century old, so that is to be expected. This one, likewise, I cleaned it, and it had a number of other problems I had to deal with. But it turned out very well, too. The case back looks a lot better than the picture might indicate. The vitreous enamel dial, has minor hairlines, and there is a factory fault in the enamel (carbon fleck on the surface), but you really have to look to see these faults. This model is not top of the line from Waltham from the era. But the gold jewel settings, gold balance wheel screws, and ornate damask finish makes them an attractive movement. This model was produced with as few as 7 jewels, and all the way to 19, 21, and 23-jewels in their railroad approved models.

Gorgeous!

Especially that hunter cased one.

Always glad to see posts to this thread.

Indeed, that Hunter case is gorgeous!

Another pocket watch surfaced recently. This one came to me requiring service. It is a Hampden, made before John C. Dueber the case maker, bought the Hampden company, and changed the name to Dueber. This one is an 18-size, grade 80, 16-jewel model, full-plate, nickel finish, gold jewel chatons, patented micrometer Teske regulator, in a gold-filled Dueber case which is complete with its original case paper with correct case serial number, tucked inside the case back. Exceptional, because these case papers were usually discarded either by the owner, or a repair person along the way. This one made circa 1896, so it is about 125 years old! I’ve never been head-over-heels about Hampden or Dueber watches, but many folks like them. I show this one because of its condition. Many of us who are into pocket watches have had our fill of ratted out gold filled hunter cases with bad hinges, and covers that won’t stay shut. This case shows no brass, and based on its over all condition, it appears to have had little use. We usually see chipped, cracked, or hairlined vitreous enamel dials.

This one is as it came to me, and all I have done is to use a Selvyt cloth on the inner and outer covers to brighten them a bit. I serviced the movement and replaced the tired old blued steel mainspring with a modern white alloy spring. There is little evidence that the watch has had a lot of repair over the years (4 repair marks). The hands don’t match, but I am in the process of scoping out a replacement minute hand. The single sunk, 12-hour dial (marked Hampden) is pristine, which is unusual for a watch of this age.

Here’s the scoop.

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/hampden/962539

That Hampden sure looks nice.



I'm perusing railroad grade watches at present and concentrating on learning about Hamilton, Illinois, Waltham, and Elgin, but really like hunter case feature. I suppose I can see why the hunter case was not generally approved for use by railroads as the case would be considered to be too fiddly and something else that could get out of order. Makes a lot of sense for non-railroad applications though. I like the notion of opening them when hauling them out of a pocket for the time ... says the guy who will not hear of utilizing a cell phone or Apple watch to tell the time.

If you don't mind sharing, why does the Hampden watch not warm the cockles of your heart?

I'm on the fence on adding examples of Hampden, South Bend, Rockford, and Seth Thomas to the list of pocket watches that would be nice to have. Perhaps one from each of those brands would do.

@noelekal ,

I could get into a lengthy dissertation about why I prefer other makes over Hampden (and Dueber, same watches, different owner). Hampden (Dueber) were a smaller manufacturer than “the Big 4 (Elgin, Waltham, Hamilton, Illinois), so railroad grade and railroad standard watches (which are my main focus), were produced in much smaller quantities, and are harder to find. And Hampden (and later, Dueber) didn’t lavish their movements with the same finish that the big 4 did. I’ll post another picture of the subject Hampden, and I’ll add several pictures of Waltham and Elgin movements of comparable grade and quality, and tell me which movements look better finished than the Hampden.

Hampden:



Waltham 1883 CRTS (Canadian Railway Time Service):



Hamilton:



Elgin:

Back to the 18-size Hampden I recently posted! This has been a saga, this one. When I finally got it to the point it would run, I put it on my timing machine. OMG, it was awful. I left it running over night, and checked it the following morning. It was waaaaaay fast. I moved the regulator to the slow side as far as possible. Still waaaaay fast. I removed the balance wheel, pulled the hairspring, and put the balance wheel on my poising tool. I didn’t check the balance wheel too closely when I cleaned it, but the poising tool showed me there was a screw missing from the balance wheel. On closer examination, I see evidence of three broken balance wheel screws, heads missing! At that point I decided I wasn’t going to waste any more time on that original balance wheel. I pulled a scrap Hampden out of my stash, and found it had a good balance wheel, and it fitted the recipient Hampden. However, there was a problem. The hairspring on the watch I’m working on has a “collar button” stud which is compatible with the Teske regulator the watch has. The donor balance has a different stud and regulator. So I can’t use the hairspring from the donor balance. The hairspring swap worked fine. BUT, now I have to time the recipient hairspring to the donor balance wheel. And I don’t have a hairspring vibrator. The donor roller table isn’t right either, so I transplanted the original roller table to the donor balance. Get this all done, and I can’t get a pattern on the timing machine. Only solution is to set the Hampden to the second with my wrist watch, and let it run. Well! The watch runs fine, but it is hours slow, which means the donor balance is too heavy for the original hairspring. So now I am down to gradually removing weight from the donor balance wheel, setting the watch to the second with my wrist watch, and checking it frequently. Removing weight from the screws on the donor balance wheel as required. Eventually, the donor balance will be the right weight for the recipient hairspring. This sort of dilemma is typical when working on watches that are about 135 years old, and have been worked on by ham fisted rank amateurs who mess with stuff they should leave alone! I’m glad I’m getting a big enough price to make the effort worth while!

Very interesting to read your Hampden saga. It's an education to read of the effort even if folks like me have a difficult time envisioning the process.

To push @noelekal towards a Rockford.

18s open face
circa 1876 Model 1 KWKS
GW Ladd heavy gold 25 year gf case( the anchor was their symbol for 25 yr guarantee)
Morning glory hands

F. X. Guth were a family of watchmaker/jewelers in Clarion, PA.

Oh man!!!

Don't ya' be doing mean things to me like posting that neato watch to cause me to turn up my "wanter button."

Morning glory hands. Those are quite attractive.

GW Ladd case info

What an absolutely stunning case! And the movement as well. Here’s the skinny on it. Very early according to the data.

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/rockford/17038

Yes, early, mine has a June 1874 date on one plate under balance wheel and the Ladd case has the Ladd Patent date 1867

@Canuck

I would like your evaluation/explanation/history of this micro-regulator design.

@TexOmega , I haven’t seen that regulator before. My copy of the Shugart “bible” shows one version of a Rockford regulator, but it is quite different to the one on your Rockford. In the Rockford section of the”bible”, there is a diagram of. Rockford model 1. The indicator is there, as is the stub. But the sketch in the book doesn’t show the micrometer screw and it’s bolster, or the whiplash spring. But what IS shown is just like your regulator.

Thank you

I've never seen another and I thought it looked quite exotic and unique.