I bought a pair of watches on ebay one year, a great buy! they came in and a clean and oil and they were running on my movement holder. Then... in the case face up.. it stopped.
Took it to my watchmaker and right a way he noticed the "noisy" movement and their respective jeweling problems. this was the first non runners that i got that didnt have a broken staff when i got them.
3 years later i took it apart and found that the 975p had a metal disk for a upper cap jewel. I know elgins better than hamiltons, but is'nt this incorrect. ive read some post about the jewel count and types(no lower cap jewel, i think) being different in the 975's but I didnt know enough about watches when i read them. Also the lower jewels are in a brass setting and doesnt look beveled like the uppper.
Also, does anyone have the correct upper and lower assemblies for this Ham. thanks

Darren,

It is incorrect. Even low jewel count American pocket watches (7 jewels) always have "end" jewels to support both tips of the balance pivot, never metal. Even the Swiss with their lousy "fakes" would have at least put a piece of red glass on top of the balance cock so that the wearer could impress his/her friends with that one important and impressive jewel.

It's not unusual for an an amateur watch tinkerer to replace a fractured end jewel with a piece of steel....or worse!

William

The 975 which Hamilton proudly offered as the hunter-cased "Businessman's workhorse" Pocket watch can be an extremely accurate and smooth running 3-position adjusted watch. BUT it HAD to be maintained well and all 17 Jewels had to be kept pristine! This example of mine was well maintained and still keeps very close to RR time, certainly good enough to keep the businesman "on time". A metal end cap on yours suggests even more butchery at the hands of some questionable watch repair person. I expect that yours can still be restored though.

Thanks for the info, dave. I didnt know that it was toward the businessman. Mine is signed Lambert Bros. Ney York. The seller listed it as an elgin. This was because the butcher also took an elgin dial, cut the feet off, and glued repair feet in the pos for the Ham. This is one that has the 4 foot dial and I suspect that the old dial was bad and this was the "repair". I latter bought a 4 foot Ham. w. co dial(theyre not cheap). I also bought a salesmans disp.case to show the beautiful movement. I am originally an elgin collector but working on this Ham. and 1908 mdl 17j waltham showed me the quality and detail that came with the higher priced mvmts. The balances on these have made me scratch my head, but i couldnt beat the $30 price for such nice crafstmanship.

Here is the lower jewel setting.

movement back