Having seen much discussion on Hamilton boxes, would anyone beable to fill me in on Bunn/Sangamo metal ciggarett boxes.. When were they used and what models..
Thanks for any help here..
Posts: 638 | Location: Green Bay, Wisconsin USA | Registered: November 22, 2002
I have 2 Ball aluminum watch boxes (and 2 Illinois Balls to go in them ). My theory is that Illinois sold the 16s 23J watches to Ball in these boxes, and that most of them got donated to the war effort and melted to make aluminum aircraft. Hence, they're somewhat rare.
They are also somewhat different than the Bunn/Sangamo boxes - they don't have the rectangular indentations on the sides, and they're marked Ball on the tops.
Don't the Ball-Illinois boxes also have "Park Sherman" as the manufacturer's name on the underside? The Illinois Bunn Special / Sangamo Special boxes I'm familiar with are not marked with manufacturer's name and have a match striker on the bottom.
Speaking of rarity, only some 3,500 Ball-Illinois watches were produced.
Lindell
Posts: 10553 | Location: Northeastern Ohio in the USA | Registered: November 19, 2002
Sorry it's taken me so long to respond - I was spending my time over-coiling a new hairspring for somebody's watch (seriously - and it's running really well, too!). I'm not at all sure it was worth the effort, but it's someone I work with, and she really wants it to run.
I don't know about tying the aluminum boxes with only the Illinois Ball RR watches except by inference:
The only other watches that I know of that came in aluminum cigarette boxes were Illiois RR watches (Bunn Spl and Sangamo Spl)
There aren't very many of these Ball boxes around, yet Ball sold a very large number of watches, through his jewelry store and as RR watches (which I remember being a separate company)
I actually have a somewhat beat-up outter cardboard box for one of the Ball aluminum boxes, but it doesn't have a great deal of information on it, and what it has is hand-written, which makes it hard for me to decipher. (I suppose I should dig it out and try really hard to figure out what it actually says about the watch that came inside).
As for the bottom of the Ball aluminum boxes, they say Park-Sherman on the bottom.