Here's one to ponder for you guys:



The good thing about being a watch dealer is you get some interesting trade ins, some of which you've previously sold before...I sold this watch in 2001 to my customer, and had long forgotten it until the other day, when he traded it in on another.

This dates from approx 1915 era, IMHO one of the finest railroads you can own.

Notice that SINGLE sunk dial, do you think it could be a dial option?

Has the big subsecond ring, looks period correct. What other watch could this dial possibly have come on, if not a high grade railroad? Did some lines allow this in 1915?



A look at that high grade Sangamo Special bridge movement. Notice that gold cap jewel. Almost perfect, this is why I've always collected Illinois...not much can compare with it.


Now, on to the case:






It's a Star, marked Model 177...does anyone know anything about this model? No extra case screw marks, has a very unusual bow, looks period correct as well...very unusual case.

OK, have fun with this one...tell me your thoughts on it.

Nice looking watch Tom.

I can't comment on what dial could be original or not, just thought I would add that the dial has it feet at 17.5/39.0/58.0 & would fit Illinois model numbers 6, 7, 9, 10-15

Tom

Tom,

A couple of my observations on your watch....first I believe it would have had a double sunk dial as this was a high grade watch. Also you may notice that the upper balance jewel was held in place from the bottom as opposed to top screws. This was done on some of the movements but not all of them.

I have a 19 jewel Bunn 60 HOUR movement in an almost identical Star case which Lindell and I were discussing just this last weekend. These were produced in the late 30's and early 40's. Cases wore out and were replaced quite regularly if they were used on a daily basis. Same was true for dials and hands.

All in all a very nice looking watch....and you just have to love that gold filled engraving.

Steve

This should add some flavour to the discussion...On going thru my Illinois, I found another 21J Sangamo Special with the exact same single sunk dial! The later example has a bolder subsecond bit, and a little bolder numerals (it is on a later version of this watch) but other than that they are identical. Here's the pair:



Now what's the odds of two of these very scarce watches having the same single sunk dial? I believe now these are indeed original dials to these particular watches.
The other one is a later "false bridge" and done in the later "red lettered" engraving.





Further reading in Meggars "Bible" only shows two runs of these false bridge models made,

(from what little I read so far, I may be wrong on this, but I do know only 200 of the red letter 19J Sangamo Special models were made)

The 21J SS Red Letter models consist of one run of only 30 and one of 500 (of which this one came out of.) These two are definitely staying together now. This is but one reason why watch collecting, and Illinois in particular, is so much fun.