Is it just me?
For the first 6-years of my collecting hobby/obsession it was all about the movement(s). Then, recently, I took stock and discovered - somehow - nearly 40-percent of my almost 400 watches are "sidewinders". In other words hunting-cased watches that have lost the original case. So now, I'm trying to rectify that, by looking for hunter watches that are still properly cased...and cases for mine that aren't.
Yeah right!
My primary source is, naturally, fleabay. Trouble is - first of all, there just aren't many. Too many scrap drives for wars and the ever-enticing price of gold has taken one **** of a toll on hunter watches! The few 'survivors' listed tend to be massively over-priced low grade watches. High grade hunting-cased watches when you can ferret one out, are clearly worth an obscene premium over the same grade in open face! DRAT!
I understand supply and demand, but lament the damage "scrappers" have done to the supply of these beautiful (and now rare) hunting-cased watches(and their cases).
Now- the question...is there any chance some day some way, someone will remanufacture hunting cases? It's been done for open face stuff. I would think there's a market for basic hunting cases...no need for gold. I hope so, because A) they are great and B) the last thing the world needs is more "sidewinders"!

Hi Kip,

I try not to collect hunters for all the reasons you mentioned and each hunter version has an open faced version. So I save me the stress of dealing with and looking for hunter cases. But I think you have a misunderstanding of old sidewinders. Yes an awful lot of them are re cases. However many of them were originally cased in open faced cases so taking them out of the original open face case and putting them in hunter cases actually destroys the history of the watch. Do I change original cases out for hunters? Yes. But I keep the original case so it goes with the watch should I sell it. Back then a jeweler would case a watch to the demands of the customer which would depended on what the customer wanted and could afford.

Harry

Harry is correct. When hunting case manufacture ceased in the years just before WWI. the watch factories were largely stuck with surplus hunting movements, which were then offered to wholesalers at discounted prices, and thus resold to jewelers who would case them in whatever cases were in inventory to please a customer. This gives us a sort of sub-set of original watch mov't/case combinations, especially for the period of say 1905-1925. Hunting cases themselves were prone to damage, more expensive to produce, and couldn't compare to a sturdy open face watch case. They are mostly a 19th century holdover and I generally avoid them (unless it's a model 72 Waltham)!

Kip If you are buying an un-cased Hunter.
Factor in the current price of a decent case.
Only buy if it still seems like a good deal. Best to buy hunting cased watches in original cases
Forget about reproduction cases, to me it would be like putting modern aluminum wheels on a great model A Ford.. The last hunter movement that I bought was 8 years ago. Only recently did I find a decent case. I hate the way it is with all the scraping of these great antiques, but it is not going to get any better.

Interesting assortment of views. Personally, I like hunters in hunter cases. I like to carry a pocketwatch, but as I have no vest or waiscoat pockets to carry them in, they end up in my pants pocket. I have unfortunately damaged a fair number of open face watches that way by banging into something, resulting in broken crystals, bent hands, dial cracks, etc. I have better luck carrying hunting case watches. As far as collecting is concerned, my watches are probably about 50/50 split between OF and hunting. But I avoid sidewinders. They just don't look right!