Hello Christine,
Thank you for sending in this pocket watch to mearto.com for an appraisal.
TITLE:
Gent’s 16 size, pendant wound and lever set, 10k gold filled, railroad grade, ‘scalloped’ open face pocket watch, S/N 2643413, calibre 992E, made by the Hamilton Watch company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, made circa 1939. Layered scalloped case made by the wadsworth watch case company of Dayton, Kentucky.
DESCRIPTION:
CASE: 16 size, three leaf, 10k yellow gold-filled case made by the Wadsworth Watch case company (see below) of Dayton, Kentucky, with a small flat coin shaped crown and rounded bow placed at the twelve position relative to the dial. The interior of the back cover indicates that Wadsworth took out this patent in 1926 for this style of case. The style of case is “scalloped” and refers to having three concentric rings around the dial, each ring getting larger as it moves toward the center, while the back of the case would have the same configuration giving the case a six layered rounded look, a beautiful type of case.
DIAL: Three level double sunk dial with white enameled bold Arabic hours, open bar minute track with Cubist five minute markers, sunken subsidiary seconds dial @6 with steel second’s bit, sunken dial center with Hamilton printed at the top of the dial center and Continental-type Spade hands.
MOVEMENT: size 16, split three quarter plate damascened nickel movement with exposed ratchet and crown wheels, the grade 992E, Model 2, made by the Hamilton Watch company with serial number 2643413, indicating it was made in 1939 in a [production run of 8000 such movements, each with 21 jewels, rubies with some in gold screw settings. The movement is pendant wound and lever set with double roller (which stabilizes the balance wheel, the fork and the pallets in the escapement), going barrel, a micrometer type of index regulator for greater precision in the running of the movement. The pallet have sapphire jewels and the bimetallic balance wheel has an Elinvar hairspring. The movement is adjusted to five positions and to temperature and isochronism. This is a fine Railroad grade watch and Hamilton made the best of those types of pocket watches. The watch is signed and numbered properly by Hamilton.
Condition: Case - Very unusual version made by the Wadsworth Watch Case Company and is quite handsome in appearance.
I cannot see the back cover to evaluate it, but will assume is very good as the inside of the cover is.
Dial: Couple of scuffs and a small hairline at the 29 minute marker. Movement – Excellent and assumed to be in running order.
HISTORY OF THE WADSWORTH WATCH CASE COMPANY:
Born in Birmingham, England in 1845 and emigrating to America in 1857, Henry Wadsworth founded this company in 1889. H.A. Wadsworth & Co was located in Newport, Kentucky from 1889-1892 and then as the Wadsworth Watch case company of Newport until 1900 when they moved to Dayton, Kentucky until 1953. They earned a high reputation in the trade with their solid gold and gold filled cases. They sold cases to the Hamilton, Elgin and Waltham watch manufacturers. In 1953 they became a division of the Elgin National Watch Company of Illinois.
HISTORY OF THE Hamilton Watch Company:
The Hamilton Watch company (HWC) was founded in 1892, and is considered by many collectors as the premier American Watch manufacturing company. HWC was preceded by the Adams & Perry Watch Company (1874-76), Lancaster Watch Company (1877-86) and the Keystone Standard Watch Company (1886-90). The first pocket watches were produced by Hamilton in 1893 and due to their accuracy were a favorite of railroad personnel. In fact, by 1923 the HWC was producing Railroad quality watches 53% of the time, including wrist watches as well as pocket watches. The company was located in Lancaster, Pa. They were always devoted to quality rather than quantity. They produced wonderful Art Deco wrist watches in the 1920's and 30's. In 1957 they introduced their Electric series, using a small battery. They led the industry in the development of the quartz watch also. They ceased making watches in 1969. In all they had produced almost 13 million watches.
In 1966, Hamilton acquired the Buren Watch Company of Switzerland, including all factories and technologies that had been developed by Buren up to that point. From 1966 to 1969, Hamilton of Lancaster, Pa. and Buren of Switzerland were operated as a joint concern, with Hamilton using a number of Swiss movements for their "American" watches and Buren utilizing a number of components manufactured by Hamilton, Lancaster. It was during this time that Hamilton started to selectively incorporate the highly innovative Buren Micro-rotor (a.k.a. Micro Rotor/Micro-rotor) movement into small numbers of certain upper tier watches, in addition to their ordinary hand-wind and traditional automatic watches.
The Buren (now Hamilton/Buren) Micro-rotor was the first patented automatic wristwatch movement to eliminate the sizable external oscillating weight inherent to most automatic winding watches. Instead, it utilized a much smaller weight that was entirely integrated into the chassis of the movement. This design allowed for a substantially slimmer automatic watch that still retained a center sweep second hand. The Micro-rotor concept was also conceived by Universal Genève for use in their Polerouter series of timepieces during this same time. The official title of "first Micro-rotor movement" is still in dispute among some horology aficionados, even though Buren patented their design in 1954 while Universal Geneve applied for their patent in May 1955.
In 1969, the Hamilton Watch Company completely ended American manufacturing operations with the closure of its factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, shifting manufacturing operations to the Buren factory in Switzerland.
From 1969 to 1972, all new Hamilton watches were produced in Switzerland by Hamilton's Buren subsidiary. In 1971, the Buren brand was returned to Swiss ownership and by 1972, the Buren-Hamilton partnership was dissolved and the factory liquidated, due to decreased interest and sales of the Hamilton-Buren product. On May 16, 1974, the Hamilton brand was sold to SSIH (subsequently The Swatch Group).
PRICING:
The prices listed in recent sales for the non-solid gold Hamilton 992E pocket watches generally range between an auction value of $275-$325, and I think yours fits right in there with those watches. Here is the entire page from liveauctioneers.com: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/search/?keyword=Hamilton%20992E%20pocket%20watch&sort=-saleStart&status=archive
Thank you for using mearto.com for these watches.
My best,
David