Was the first run of these 104 Grade Hampdens the only run that had the Patent #711476 on the movement.

Gene to my knowledge you are correct. I do not know how many were done that way but I have a number of 104 and Special Railways and most do not have the patent information. Your watch is in very nice condition with the gold flashing and lettering in such good shape.

The serial # on mine is 2801447. here is a link to production runs.

Link

I can't read Lindells Hunter but it is marked with the patent #. Lindells Hunter

I

The dial

Gene I am interested. A true Hampden collector never has too many!

Here are the production runs posted by another member.
Posted April 30, 2005 23:45
John, I am no Hampden expert, but perhaps the following information from the "Hampden Watch Co" book by Hernick and Arnold will help.

It lists the following runs by serial number:

2,801,006 - 2,801,687 (681) < 2801447 is from this run
3,273,662 - 3,274,131 (496)
3,278,537 - 3,279,032 (495)
3,303,065 - 3,304,012 (947)
3,322,047 - 3,323,052 (1,005)
3,327,830 - 3,328,220 (390)
3,402,032 - 3,403,298 (1,266)
3,451,467 - 3,452,067 (600)

I think that adds up to 5,880.

I was thinking of selling this. But not so sure know. with only 681 made with this varient. It might be a keeper.

I can't wait for Lindell to put his 2 cents in.

I will keep this one Eugene if it was mine
but if you want to sell it lets keep it in
IHC family.

No No Gene! Remember Hampdens are almost worthless and never ever approach any of the big boys in quality or value so you should sell it while you can and buy a nice common 17 jewel Hamilton and be with the right crowd. I am sure Peter or I would be happy to take it off your hands for $50 and I will throw in a nice Ingersoll to sweeten the deal. I hate to tell you this but I do like the watch and would be happy to buy it if I can!

I'll try to list it in a
few days as an auction on this site. Here is one that sold on eBay

Of coarse mine has a Nice Montgomery dial.

very nice watch, I like the movement!!! and the dial too..

I think the 3,2M serial numbers are for the model 5 104's and anything below that would be the model 4 104's.

I have serial number 1,899,816 which looks very similar except mine has the SR in the Hampden flag made around 1903 and less than 1,000 made of that variation.

I agree with Lindell that these 19-23j version were as good as the best. Usually they go cheap compared to the 950s. I need to get a good example of the model 5 104 or the really uncommon, later Special Railway 23j 16s.

Claude I never knew why they marked them 104 and a few Special Railway. Any idea? I do have 1 5th model Special Railway and I see no difference between a 5th model 104 and the Special Railway. Genes nice watch does have the montgomery dial which in my opinion is not rare but less common on Hampdens than other makes of the same period.

It would be hard to say for sure but since the RR standards were requiring a number or name marking I doubt that SR inside the for flag would have been good enough so Hampden may have followed the number trend 105=21j 104=23j prior to 1910 or so. I can't recall Hampden making a 19j 18s but the 21j was New Railway and the 23j was Special Railway and the Railway would have been a 17j if you following the naming logic.

The name Railway was used on both the model 4 and model 5 19j 16 size Hampdens, so after Mr Ball effectived campaigned to kill off the 18 size watch Mr Deuber may have decided to move what were well known names over to the 16s so that Railway=19j, New Railway=21j and Special Railway=23j and dropped the 105 and 104 notations.

Clearly a off the wall guess but I tend to think it was related to the 18s being a dead size and Mr. Deuber trying to take advantage of two very well known brand names.

On the 5th model 104 it had more than one DMK effect where all the 23j 16s Special Railway marked watches had a pattern that was much like the pattern on the 16s New Railway. Physically they were the same but I can only recall one DMK pattern on the 16s New or Special Railway grades but the model 5 104 had multiple patterns.

Claude, Thank you very much. I believe that Hampden experimented with an 18 size 19 jewel but never to my knowledge produced one. Since they had the Railway name copyrighted and well associated with Hampden I was always curious as to why they made a 16s 19 jewel Railway (which is a superior watch) and then produced the 105 and the New Railway and the 104 and Special Railway. I know that Illinois and Hampden seemed to produce basically the same movement with different names or numbers on the movement and I do not mean the private label watches. Maybe it was like the jewel wars, the more offerings the better.

My guess is that Hampden, by reincarnating the Railway, New Railway and Special Railway names in their 16s line, was trying to recapture the marketing magic that existed for their 18s watches. If you look at production figures, Hampden was a dominant producer of size 18 railroad watches and fell off dramatically when producing 16s watches initially using the number grade system. As I said, just a guess.

Michael that makes sense to me since Hampden fought the copyright battle over Railway and was successful against the other companies. Also Mr. Dueber died in 1909 and maybe that changed things. At any rate they produced some attractive and high quality watches.

Listed in the auction area of this Site Today. Join NOW to bid on this beauty.

https://ihc185.infopop.cc/eve/f...s/a/frm/f/1386019371