The North Coast Regional was a blast. It was great to see a lot of IHC Buddies there. There were also a lot of great clocks and watches. This post and the next one are the fruits of my hunting and gathering.

This one is the Hampden Minute Man. It is 12s, 17j in a 14K swing out case. It also has the original box with card insert with matching serial number.

Picture 2

The watch in the box.

If anyone can figure out this name, I would appreciate their efforts.

Hi Tom,
WOWOWOWOWOW that watch looks like new.

Fantastic! Congratulations!

Nice find Tom!

I'm sure you noticed monogram initials are not the same letters for names inscribed on cuvette; possibly intials put on at later date?

I smell a genealogical search brewing!

Will someone decipher the named inscribed on cuvette for Tom please?

I tried and got nowhere. Listed it several ways and got nothing on the searches I did.

Somone try to give me the letters and I will search it. Give it your best shot!

My Monitor is terrible and when I try to lighten it up it messes up the letters.

Computers #&@^&$*@#&%()+*_( I hate them sometimes.

Sheila,
I have the watch in hand and can't figure out the name! Good observation about the initials on the back being different than on the curvette.

I would guess that the name is German and those marks are *(*phonetically = oomlaut).

Can you write out the letters in the name for me?

Sheila,
the best I can figure out is:

Muisto Isultu

Can't make out the name. Working on the initials on the back.

Lets see ... hmmmm

C ? S
C ? S

Yes I got it

C R S

Now if we can just get the name .

Charlie R. Sides

Oh Oh!!!

I sense someone staking out territory here!!

I got dibs until the mystery guy shows up.

Tom I sent the picture to my Brother-in-law.

He speaks fluent German.. and may be able to translate the name to English or at least tell us how to say it.

Tom,
Don't for a minute believe what Charles is saying. I'm not sure where Charles gets this CRS initials stuff.

All I know is since coming over from the 'ol country, my birth name was just too hard to pronounce, so I changed it to something, er... more common, like Derek Phelps. I've been wondering whatever happened to that watch!!!

Derek (Muisto Isultu) Phelps

Meristo... Italian maybe?

I'm not liking the drift of this conversation.

The watch has been moved to an undisclosed location until further notice.

Isültü... Scandanavian maybe

Hi!
I would say that the inscription on the cuvette is from our neighbour her in Sweden,.....Finland, maybe Estonia. To me it sounds and looks really finish.
Thanks for showing a great looking watch.
/Bernhard

Another enhancement of the name, seems to open the possibility that the "u"s in the last name are actually "a"s. However, I do not know if the marks above the letters would appear above an "a" as they do above a "u".

Have we determined a language yet? Are these common names in language "x"?

I feel like I'm watching a slowly developing storyline for a CSI episode. (grins) Oh, Tom, I SWEAR those initials look like MAC to me, if you turn it just so and squint your eyes and look through the wrong part of your bificals....And those aren't words at all. I was just doodling in the back of the case with an engraver...

BEAUTIFUL watch, by the way!! High regards Mark

I always was told that the last name initial on this type of engraving was the center character. That would make it C S R?
Anybody else ever heard this?

Very nice watch Tom.

Tom H. thanks, what was I thinkin

I've also heard in monogramming the middle initial monogramed on whatever is usually the letter for one's last name. But as I pointed out earlier, those letters may have been put on years later as the intials, in any arrangment, do not fit the name on Tom's cuvette.

Tom S.,
I am going to email Claude Girardin in just a few and ask if he can be of assistance.

Appreciating your confidence in my language talents: my wife and I, both read the name as: Muisto Psältä, which is definitely neither a Swiss Italian, French or German name. It sound Finnish to me.

Some more insight: Switzerland has four National languages: German, French, Italian and Reto-Romänish (deriving from the old latin) and three Official languages: G F & I. depending on the area where one lives, one or the other language is the Official language, with three States where both languages are Official languages on State level: Bern, Freiburg & Wallis. Biel/Bienne and Freiburg/Fribourg are bilingual cities, where both languages are official languages on City level, with the full set of schools, reglements, street names, etc.

We speak & write French and Italian just like in France resp. in Italy, only the accent varies.

German is a different matter: although we write it as in Germany (with some exceptions, like Basler Fasnacht, where all the pamphlest are written phonetically), we speak a different language in form of various "Swiss" German dialects: German people do not understand us when we speak our Swiss German.

Within the various Swiss German spoken, here in Bern area, the polite form (you) we use is the plural form of the familiar (thou) form. In most of the other areas they use the standard German polite form. Each area has a different dialect, accent and somewhat different way of pronouncing words, making it quite easy to recognise where from everyone originates. Of course, usually we understand each other's Swiss German. For my part, I do not understand some of the dialects spoken in the Bernese Oberland and secluded valleys (but of course, German is not my primary language). Similarly, surrounding parts of Germany have also their own: Bayern, Schwartzwald. In the Northern part of German, they speak "Plattdeutsch".

In the area I live, up to 144 different languages are being spoken. It is quite normal to hold a conversation switching from Swiss German to French and vice versa, spiked with some Italian or Spanish and of course English, as "lingua franca" for most of the other languages.

We are in the centre of Europe and enjoy on a very small territory most of its cultural diversities: we are approximately 7,5 Mio people, of which over 1,5 Mio are foreigners.

Muisto= Souvenir
Isultu= Result

????????????????????????????????

Found a lot about music in my search of the words
I did them separately gave up on them together.

All foreign languages.

One being Finnish.

Also........... Psalta.......

The same dictionary defines the related term Psalta to mean "in a singing voice."

I guess it all depends on which language you are looking at.

So what we have here is,

a multi cultural Watch, that is a Souvenir that is the Result of it's having a Singing Voice !!!

HEY!!!! I never said I understood Watches!!!!!!!

Only American ones!