Calling all Pocket Watch Buffs

The skinny on your handsome 12-size Hamilton. A full boxed set, no less!

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/hamilton/3457666

The data indicates a production date of, 1937.He was born in 1905. You mentioned a graduation from St. Louis Country Day School. It would appear as though he might have received the watch when he was age 32! Could be the estimated production date is incorrect, I suppose.

Potter & Anderson Jewellers. It appears they’re still in business.

Aha! The pocketwatchdatabase.com information I posted, appears to be incorrect. Makes sense.

The 4992B was made in a base metal case, as well as in sterling. I’ve only ever seen one sterling example. They were probably not used by the military in the sterling case. You didn’t tell us if the Hamilton and the owner’s kit are now yours.

I was motivated to have a look through Donald Hoke’s book, The Time Museum Historical Catalog of American Pocket Watches. ISBN 90-071104, copyright 1991. The Time Museum was founded and curated by Seth Atwood of Rockford, Illinois. The Museum unfortunately is no longer, and the spectacular collection he amassed has been dispersed. I was looking for Rockford pocket watches that displayed the same regulator as exhibited on @TexOmega ’s spectacular Rockford model 1. Lo and behold, there are two Rockford pocket watches in the book that have the same regulator, pages 206 and 207. The text doesn’t specify anything about the regulators, but the text on the one watch mentions “Hurd’s Patent”. I wonder if that applies to this unique regulator. Two images. If you need to know any more, get back with a follow up post.

@Canuck


https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/reference/patent/151537/rockford-watch-regulator-regulators

Well, that info sent me here, cool....thank you


June 1874 stamping on my movement dates the Hurd's Patent date

https://patents.google.com/patent/US151537

There are notable differences between the regulator on your Rockford, and the two Rockfords shown in my previous post, when compared to the regulator shown in the link @TexOmega uploaded. Perhaps Hurd patented more than one regulator?

Well, vision to patent to implementation could be part of the answer.

Appears he lived in Illinois, too. About an hour(modern time!) from Rockford.

A friend and I had the good fortune to attend an NAWCC seminar in Rockford, I’ll., in 1995. It was held at Seth Atwood’s Clock Tower resort complex in Rockford, which contained the Time Museum founded by Atwood. There aren’t enough superlatives to adequately convey the experience of seeing that museum. The conference itself was on the topic of American railroad standard watches, and there were hundreds of spectacular watches on exhibit, from private collectors, the world wide! I was gobsmacked after overdosing for three days, on what we had the good fortune to see! With the museum now gone, this will never happen again. You have to know I am overjoyed at having seen the museum.

Note in the link that much of the contents of the Time Museum were at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, until 2004.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_G._Atwood

Reporting on the Hampden again. I spent some time on it again, today. It now is within about 30 seconds per day fast, with the regulator close to the middle. I’ll run it until next week, and get it back to the owner. Profound relief!

Great story!

@TexOmega ,

More on the Hurd regulator. The Pocketwatchdata.com information on Rockford contains information on the Hurd regulator on your Rockford, as well as the Hurd regulator in the additional regulator patent information. The picture attached shows TWO patent regulators list as by Hurd. Mystery solved! He seems to have patented TWO
regulators. It appears as though Rockford used each of the four regulators shown in this listing.

My Hampden challenge that I have reported on is doing far better than I expected! Within 15-seconds in 24-hours!

The Hampden went back to its owner today. Having not been reset for 5 days, it was only 15-seconds out! I count my blessings that it is gone!

Where in Heavens name did Spell Check find the ward MALDEN, for use to replace Hampden? I’ll have to be more observant! Karl Malden, maybe?

I was offered this today, Omega GSTP pw, which is nice but nothing special from a horological POV since, they made tens of thousands. It is in very good condition considering these were used as tool watches though, most show brassing and dial issues. Dates to circa ~1944 if the 9.9m serial is any indication. I note the 9, 12 and 3 are blind which I first took to suggest lume failure or removal but I have seen others like this so maybe later ones just had less dial lume (which being radium might not be a bad thing).

I am weighing up whether to buy it but they aren't mega valuable and the seller has high expections. I am thinking ~£150-200 is fair, he has seen listings at £450 so of course thinks that is what it is worth.🙄

Grandad's 1924 Waltham just got out of rehab today, here are a couple of Before and After shots:

Before


After



Before


After



If you'll recall from an earlier posting, the watch was not running when I took possession of it, probably due to a mainspring-related issue. The crystal was likely a 1940s or 1950s acrylic replacement that was not UV resistant. One OF member voiced concern about the degrading crystal releasing a corrosive substance that could have damaged the hands irreparably.

The work done during rehab was not as extensive as I might have imagined. The mainspring and balance jewel were replaced, and the missing screw was replaced by a newly fabricated one (I'll have to ask the watchmaker about what appears to be a newly missing screw). The hour and minute hands were successfully removed, cleaned, and re-installed. The second hand did not survive -- it disintegrated during removal, so what we see is a replacement and I think they did a good job on selection. An attempt was made to source a mineral crystal that would work with this watch but the search was not successful; a modern acrylic crystal was installed instead.

I'll have to admit I was a bit disappointed by the condition of the dial -- it was previously masked by the damaged and clouded acrylic. The corroded striation at 10:30 is rather mysterious in origin, maybe the result of an accident that broke one of the previous crystals? Grandad was a farmer and I have the vaguest recollection of him pulling a pocket watch out of the top-centre pocket of his denim overalls, so this watch seems to have survived a fairly harsh environment.

Of course, just the satisfaction of being the owner of this relic of our family's past far outweighs any concern about the watch's appearance 😀