Can anybody tell me what this dial might have been used on? 16s double sunk with 3 dial feet. Lindell?

IHC Member 25
IHC Life Member (L6)

I have seen that dial used on the 956 grade 16s watches....

That sure has a 1920s look about it, and the 956 Terry mentioned was produced through 1925. As you know we also see similar designs on a lot of 12-size watches from that era. The closest match I could find came with the 1930 Hamilton Watch pages in the Roy Ehrhardt Hamilton book where a very similar dial is depicted on a factory cased 16-size "Traffic Special" watch. Unfortunately, the grade was not mentioned.

In the description the dial depicted in the picture below is "no extra charge" so one like yours may easily have been one of the other standard issue dials available. In fact they were pretty free and easy with dials in 1930 because it states "Available with any the railroad dials shown above without extra charge" and you'd cry if you saw what was shown there!

Your dial is in beautiful condition and I'd expect it is correct for any Hamilton 16-size dress watch in the 1920s and early to mid 1930s.

Similar dial shown in 1930 on the 17-jewel 3-position "Traffic Special" watch...

Lindell,
I believe that the dial shown in the catalog page for the 'Traffic Special" is a metal dial with pressed seconds, while Larry's dial is a porcelain enamel double sunk dial. In any event, it is a very handsome dial and would grace any 16 size Hamilton of the 1920's period. It certainly would have been acceptable for railroad service.

Ed Ueberall
NAWCC #49688
IHC #34
http://members.aol.com/stdwatch/

Thanks a lot Ed! My concern was the time-frame and whether it would have been acceptable in RR time service. Thanks for clearing that up for us. That one being metal didn't occur to me. Say, did you see that ...any of the railroad dials shown above without extra charge"... in the ad? Now that really surprised me.

Nobody's handing out dials these days are they?

Thanks alot guys. I've always wondered what this dial would be appropriate for and now I know. This one certainly looks unused; not so much as even a scratch. Lindell, what other dials? A ferguson at no extra charge?

IHC Member 25
IHC Life Member (L6)

I concur with Ed regarding the metal dial.......

On page 40 of Ehrhardt's Hamilton book in the lower left is pictured a 956 with the mentioned dial. It is a page from a 1923 Otto young catalog


I have also seen the 956 with a dial with 'dots' [a'la ball] for five minute markers...[got one here somewhere..]

I 'think' the ferguson dial would have been an extra charge, as it was not a Hamilton 'factory' dial.... Noted some time ago when Joe Demesy was selling his ferguson dials that they were furnished with a set of hands a special length for the dial.....

I also noted there was a thread started concerning ferguson dials... I don't have complete info to respond to the post....



OOPS>>>>> disregard the note on dial on page 40.... it is different.... red face.....

I have owned a 956 with that dial though....and ole Roy has sold a bunch of those dials...

[This message was edited by terry hall on May 29, 2003 at 20:55.]

Larry,

The Ferguson Patented Dials would have faded out nearly twenty years before this ad and as Terry pointed out although Ferguson hoped to make then factory available they were evidently a jeweler installed item. I would also agree about the special hands being an integral part of the Ferguson "look" and yes that's a whole other story.

In that ad they offered the "Traffic Special" buyer their choice of some mighty choice dials. By the way those odd-looking angled prices were Mr. Ehrhardt's 1976 estimates of value, times sure have changed haven't they?

Check out the ..."without-extra-charge"... choices in 1930 over a metal dial...