December 03, 2006, 16:53
René RondeauAnother historic early Hamilton
Here’s another interesting Hamilton. Curiously, as late as 1897-1898 Hamilton still had over 10% of their earliest watches in inventory – 108 movements numbered between 7 and 994 (all open-face grades), and 116 in the 1,000 to 2,000 range (hunting case grades). Some of these watches were simply unsold stock, many were returns (number 12 was listed as having “stopped 3 times”!), and some had been used for samples. Hamilton opted to refurbish and sell these old-stock and used movements between September 1897 and February 1898. By that time, Hamilton’s normal production was running in serial number blocks in the high 20,000 ranges. Evidently they figured that customers would realize that watches with serial numbers like 7, 12, 401, 876 etc. were not really new. So for apparent psychological reasons Hamilton decided to renumber all of these refurbished watches by adding a 3 with one to three zeros depending upon the original number to bring the first 1,000 numbers into the 30,000 range. Watches between 1,000 and 2,000 had a 3 added to bring them to the 31,000 level. The resulting 30,002-32,000 block was reserved exclusively for these refurbished watches, and of course only 224 numbers were actually assigned within that range.
The watch here is a grade 936, originally marked with serial number 760. It had been completed on May 2, 1894 and was sent to “advertising” on January 14, 1895. Perhaps it was used as a salesman’s sample, or maybe it was sent off to an artist to make an engraving to publish in an advertisement. (Movement serial number 1000 was in fact used for such an engraving, which appeared in “The Keystone” in October 1894. This movement was later put back into inventory, renumbered 31000, and subsequently sold.) Exactly what advertising purpose this particular watch served is unknown. What is known is that it was rebuilt in late 1897 and renumbered by adding “30" in front of the original serial number. It was also fitted with a new barrel bridge engraved with the name of the jeweler who purchased it on December 22, 1897: Ulrich Bros. of Baraboo, WI and Evanston, IL.
One of the charming things about these renumbered watches is that the original serial number was positioned close to the case screw, which didn’t leave enough room for a 5-digit serial number. Consequently when this was renumbered the zero was placed directly adjacent to the 7, but the 3 had to be positioned to the left of the screw! Still, presumably the ruse worked and buyers didn’t realize they were being sold old or used goods.
Needless to say, these renumbered Hamiltons of late 1893 and early 1894 are even rarer than unaltered watches with serial numbers under 1,000.
