Incoming Harwood - The First Automatic Watch

It's probably been six months since my last purchase, but I have now fallen off the wagon.

When I visited the NAWCC museum last year, I saw a number of examples of the Harwood, which was the first serially produced automatic watch. The company produced watches for sale in the USA and elsewhere from around 1929 to 1931, when it was killed off by the Great Depression.

Since then, I have been trying to find one at a reasonable price and in decent shape without success, until now:



On this watch, there is no crown. The hands are set using the bezel to disengage the movement. Some models have the bezel on the back, similar to the LeCoultre Futurematic. The movement was made for Harwood by A. Schlid. It is a bumper automatic, with the springs hidden inside the rotor.



The case on this one is rolled white gold plate, which I like better than gold-filled. It has very little wear-through.



Adam (GLADIATOR), one of the researchers at the NAWCC did a really nice write up on these some time ago:

http://mb.nawcc.org/showthread.php?94371-The-GENESIS-of-Automatic-watches-John-Harwood

Take care and have a great weekend,
gatorcpa

Lovely historical piece, nice addition to your collection.

Also congratulations on you restraint over the past year.

Wow, nice one!
And where did they get those bumpers?
From the front of a train?
;-)

Another good article on the Harwood from WatchTime Magazine.

http://watchtime.at/archive/wt_2001_05/WT_2001_05_104.pdf

Enjoy,
gatorcpa

Gator, what's the small hole in the dial above 6 for?

Cheers
Jim

It can't be manually wound and usually need to shake the watch a fair bit to get it going. Then again, that's what I need to do with my far more modern Seiko automatic.

There are no watchmakers marks inside the case, so it is possible that it has never been fully serviced. Some of the screws show evidence of having been turned at some point. I started it up last night and it ran through the night keeping excellent time, but it doesn't always do that. It's probably sticky from old oil. I need to find someone familiar with the movement for a good clean and lube job.


I'm curious of the asking price for these in the UK. Was it a gold plated/filled case?


Dennis nailed it, but backwards. It shows red when the watch is in normal running position. The dot is silver or black when in hand-setting mode. Unlike the LeCoultre Futurematic, the Harwood movement doesn't stop when being set.

Hope this helps,
gatorcpa