I have to show off my "new" Hampden Railway 69166, its in nice condition , a few chips and scratches here and there , it could be the original silveroid case . Does anyone else have a Keywind Hampden Railway ?

dial

A nice one Kevin. I like the cool blue screws, and Fleur-de-lis hands.
A great early Hampden. Thanks for posting it. Jack

Very Nice Kevin! I have several Railways but to the best of my knowledge I don't believe any of my Railways are KW. Congrats!

Nice...

Thanks for the comments , I like these keywind "higher" grade pocketwatches

I've got 4-5 18S railways. Early 15J ones were same grade as the Hampden Ball. Looks like I'll have to find a keywind meself now. I love these "Railways"!

I was looking around and saw New York watch co had one marked Rail-way , serial about 52411 and a Rail-way 57831 (hampden ?) , after that it was not hyphenated (Ed Ueberal). The info I have seen they went to stemwind at about 70,000 .An interesting note an advert for hampden showed the KW railway costing 60.00 , the next highest grade lafayette was 20.00 and the lowsest was 7.00 , It seems they are proud of that one ! I am still away from my books , but saw a posting stating " Roy Erhardt said these are special ". There is also an observation of a Keywind Railway at 160000 , I have not seen it. Now I am on the lookout for a NewYork Rail-way !

Hi Kevin, sweet railway.

I had been watching that one, and I know your pumped about it and don't want to rain on your parade, but a few points from my observations.
The blue screws, the double sunk dial, and the nickel case. All do not match any observations I have.
Close to your watch I have in observations:

69055
69105
69164
69165

All have single sunk dials, all have either polished steel or Gold screws. A big clue on the screws, look at the jewel settings. The silveroid case has extra screw marks, meaning it once held another movement. The double sunk dials I don't see untill beyond 100,000. I have an early model 2 that someone stuck a double sunk dial on, but I think it looks great and left it on there.

Now with that being said, i think it's still a fantastic early Hampden Railway. I only responded the way I did because you seemed like you wanted to know about originality. I promise I'm not trying to be a jerk.

As far as other observations because others had mentioned it,

Lowest serial number model two (hunting/stemwind) I've observed is 69777. This is actually neat because it's a standard model two, and the serial number is lower than the hollow center pinion version with the early swing out setting lever.

Rail-way is how the movement signature started out in the new York watch company. I have observations of these at 578xx and lower.

Anyways, it a great looking Railway and your lucky to own one! I'm still on the hunt for one. I need two keywinders to finish the Hampden Springfield set and the Railway is one of them, of course. Quite an uncommon watch and hard to find.

I love that you've found some catalog listings. The earliest Hampden listing I've been able to get my eyes on is from 1880. The image is not mine to show, but the Railway is listed at $48 keywind and $55.50 for stemwind. Next closest is the Perry at $30.75 for key, $37.13 for stem.
I have to tell you the Perry is a heck of a movement, but for the extra $17.25 it costs for the keywind railway, you get Gold jewel settings, polished steel or Gold trim packages, and gold balance screws. I've also seen the Railway advertised as having Extra Fine Ruby Jewels, so I suppose the quality of the jewels themselves is also higher than the Perry.

As far as I can tell right now, the only adjustment on either movement was solely temperature. I'm still trying to look into that deeper, however.

Thanks Rick , you could be right , after 100+ years it my be hard to say , I think I am ok , I have seen 69105 ,I think Ed Ueberall had a list showing 69052.69129,69137,69141 ,69164, 69166,69256,69220,69260, here is the weird 69158 is a SW/LS and so is 69776 and 790 , what the heck was Hampden doing !There is an advert from S F meyers that shows keywind hampden railway with D.S. dial . With Hampden nothing is set in stone .
It needs to come apart , but it will be a while , I am still helping mom and not by my tools .

Haha I have 69520 observed as a Perry model two. There's an odd run of stemwinders in this 69xxx range. As I said they are not the normal early stemwinders either, they are perfectly standard model twos!!

I've seen the later listings with the Railway model 1s being advertised as having double sunk dials.. I just haven't seen where they would possibly fall yet. My thoughts are a later run. In the 1886 catalog I'm looking at from H Muhr and son, it is not listed as having a double sunk dial. Who knows. I'm sure there's a run of them hidden somewhere. Just need more observations.

I have to correct an earlier statement, the adjusting ... The Railway listing says temperature and isochronism.

Rick you have a lot of early Hampdens ! I went through the data and gave them a little check

Thanks! I guess you took a peek at that Perry I mentioned above as that's where I had seen it on the PWDB.

Hampdens went from sort of a side project to a full on obsession. Too many interesting things going on in Springfield, haha!

You know I have always been told that Hampden took over from New York Springfield Watch Co. and that was around serial number 58,000 and Hampdens 1st year production ended around 59,000. Well I have a Hampden that is marked Hampden on the dial and Hampden Springfield, Mass. on the movement but the serial number is 55,466. So I wonder where NYSWCo. ended and Hampden began?

Harry