Hello Steven.
Thank you for sending in this heirloom pocket watch to mearto.com for an appraisal. I shall try to do that for you today.
TITLE:
Gent’s, 18s, gold filled, pendant wound and lever set, railway grade, open face, pocket watch, grade 940, S/N 52034, made by the Hamilton Watch Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, circa 1906.
PROVENANCE:
“It was my great grandfathers”
DESCRIPTION:
Case: 18s, three leaf, keyless, gold filled, open face pocket watch with suppressed ball fluted gilt pendant and oval bow placed at the twelve-position relative to the dial. The dial bezel is polished gold, while the outer back cover is not shown. The inside of the rear cover carries the markings of the Keystone Watch Case Company and the mark of early American casemaker J. Boss with the Keystone ‘Scales of Justice’ logo and mentions that the gilding should last a minimum of 20 years. There is also the Keystone case number.
Dial: A triple tiered, double sunk, white enameled dial with Arabic hour indices, open bar minute track with red Arabic markers placed every five minutes around the edge of the dial, sunken subsidiary seconds dial @6, sunken dial center marked in script, ‘Hamilton Watch Co.’. There are blued steel American type Spade hands.
Movement: This is a size 18, damascened nickel full-plate movement, the grade 940, Model 1, with serial number of 524034, manufactured in 1906 in a run of 7000 such movements, each made with 21 jewels (ruby), some in gold screw type settings. This is a pendant wound and lever set movement with double roller, going barrel, micrometer regulator, Breguet hairspring with the watch movement adjusted to five positions, temperature and isochronism. This is a railroad grade pocket watch.
CONDITION:
Case – I cannot see the outer case but from the condition on the inside and the bezel I would estimate that it is overall in very good condition.
Dial – Significant hairline fracture at the 12-minute marker and running the depth of the hour chapter ring. A finer hairline is noted at the 16-minute marker. Overall, in fairly good condition.
Movement – In very good condition and considered original to this case, genuine and functional.
COMPARABLES:
~https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/99706297_10kt-gold-filled-open-face-railroad-grade-pocket-watch (SOLD IN 2021 FOR $220)
~https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/95310639_1905-hamilton-940-21-jewel-open-face-pocket-watch (Sold for $160 in 2021)
~https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/94528638_1906-hamilton-21j-railroad-grade-pocket-watch (Sold for $200 in 2021)
~https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/79973846_hamilton-pocket-watch (sold for $175 in 2020)
HISTORY:
KEYSTONE WATCH CASE COMPANY:
In 1853 Randolf & Reese Peters were making watch cases in Philadelphia, employing James Boss in their movement department. In 1859 - J. Boss received a patent for "spinning up" cases made of "gold-filled" type material. That is, material made of a sheet of composition metal (usually brass) sandwiched between two thin sheets of gold. Boss formed cases by rolling sheet metal as opposed to the traditional method involving soldering and cutting. Rolling increased the molecule density of the metal. His patent, No. 23,820 of May 3, 1859, revolutionized the watch case industry by enabling the production of not only less expensive, but considerably stronger cases. ... Unlike gold washed cases, which were made using electroplating, cases produced by means of rolling had much harder gold surfaces and were thus less apt to wear. In 1871 Boss sold patent rights to John Stuckert of Philadelphia. By 1875 - T.B. Hagstoz & Charles N. Thorpe at 618 Chestnut St. Philadelphia purchased the "J. Boss" patent from the estate of John Stuckert. Hagstoz & Thorpe seems to have made only gold-filled cases using the J. Boss patented method. Orders increased so rapidly that larger quarters became necessary immediately. A new plant on Brown Street was erected. In 1877 the E. Tracy case company, a manufacturer of solid gold and silver watch cases, was acquired. n 1880 - the company moved to a six-story building on Nineteenth St., with an equal-size annex on Wylie St. Between 1883 - 1885 - T.B Hagstoz withdrew from the company which became C.N. Thorpe Co. and shortly thereafter it was reorganized as the KEYSTONE WATCH CASE COMPANY. The firm was producing 1,500 cases per day by 1889. By merging with and purchasing other watch case and watch making companies Keystone, by 1911 was the largest watch case company in America.
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. Hamilton serial numbers are as follows: 11,500=1895; 104000=1900; 435,000=1905; 790,000=1910; 1200000=1915 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:
I believe that the fair market value of this fine Hamilton railroad watch, although a bit depressed by the presence of the fractures on the dial, would be in the range of 225-$275 as it is currently. Retail prices would be about twice that amount.
I thank you for choosing mearto.com for your appraisal.
My best,
David