It has been my understanding that a side winder is a hunter case movement in an open faced case. that someone has put the movement in the wrong case and trying to pass it off as legit.

Is this correct?

Yes, correct. A sidewinder has always been a hunting/hunter movement housed in an open faced case which makes it winding at 3 o'clock at the stem location.

regards,
bb

Some people are fairly inventive in the excuses to claim they are legit, even to the point of saying the owner wanted it that was since there were no other screw marks, yada yada yada. In the early 1900's there were various recessions, depressions and the big depression so the hunter cases having more gold content because of the extra lids were typically the first to get scraped. Scraping was so bad that some brands actually made conversion dials, and there are quite a few after-market conversion dials so that good grades could be used for RR service.

I think the idea of trying to pass it off as legit may indicate that someone is trying to pull a fast one. While its a good possibility it isnt the only one.
I have seen a few sidewinders with only one set of screw marks in a silveoid case. It is possible that when it was time to recase the watch the owner went the cheaper route of a open face case never thinking that the watch would later become a collectors item 60 years later.
Claude, the person may not have worked for the railroad and so never thought to buy the extra dial to convert it because it wasnt necessary to them.

Hi all,
For the most part I also agree that a H/C movement should not be in an open face case, and prefer not to buy them unless I really want the movement, butttttttttttttt, to say with such vigor that it could not have come that way, seems like a stretch to me. One must realize there were several manufacturers that sent uncased watches to the end seller, for them to case as the customer wished, and you know there could well have been some that wanted open faced for a variety of reasons, does that mean it is no more original that one that might have been cased right, and to say that someone is pulling a fast one, is a real stretch...... I don't know.
Just my 2 cents,
Bill

Bill my point with such vigor is that you can not prove anything saying that it was originally intended to be a sidewinder since more than likely the original purchaser is long dead. Unless you have the original purchaser, or an original sales receipt, anything else is speculation. If you look at the ads from Elgin, Hamilton, Waltham, etc they were not trying to market hunter movements in open face cases. So based on the intention of the company's market strategy (ads)you can be clear these companies did not intend for them to be sidewinders. Without proof there is no stretch to it, sales receipts showing a sale of a hunter movement with an open face case would work, I have not seen any proof like that with these claims, and 120+ year old people still alive not many of them exist either.

I can see what Jim mentioned as happening, hunter case wears out and is replaced by a cheaper case.

Also I can see where the watch was sold for scrap and the watchmaker pulls the movement and it is sold to someone at a cheap price. In both cases the movement in nearly 100% of the time had hunter case that either wore out or was scrapped and the movement was refitted into another case.

Claude,
for sure I do not dispute what is being stated, and also for sure the manufacturers intended Hunter movements in hunter cases, but my point is only that IMHO that it is not unreasonable to think that some people wanted O/F, and the end seller likely had movements to go into them. One I think has to be a little open minded, that because over a period no handwritten or other evidence is presented, or at least survived to date, that the collecting community has found, does not exclude the possibility that it happened, very few things are hard fast written in stone.
My thought only, and I respect your far superior knowledge over my meanderings,
Thanks,
Bill

Bill not to drag this point out, there may have been people that wanted a hunter movement in a open face case but I doubt that was a large quantity, it would be like saying no one ever wins the lotto, some people actually do.

My point is we can speculate and speculate but how could any seller say that a sidewinder was originally sold as a sidewinder without proof? They can't and that is the problem. It has nothing to do with being "open minded" or "closed minded" but at this point if someone is making that statement without facts then it is only speculation probably driven by the desire for a higher end price.

Most explanations for sidewinders I have seen suppose that the owner needed to re-case a hunter movement. There is a different possibility: It could be an owner had an OF case he liked and needed to replace the movement. Here's why this possibility occured to me: I own a "sidewinder" housed in a silveroid presentation case that was specially engraved as a commemorative gift to a particular individual in 1895, with name and date engraved on the back, etc. I'm thinking maybe the original movement got ruined, or wasn't worth fixing, and the owner, who wanted to keep the case, found a jeweler with a spare hunter movement lying around to put in it. In this situation neither the case nor the Elgin movement are high end, but the watch had sentimental value.

While we can only guess at how watch movements, cases, dials and hands end up together as they are today, I generally gauge the probablility of a "sidewinder" happening as follows;
A. Over 17 Jewels . . . a re-cased "melt".
B. under 17 Jewels . . . a re-cased "melt"
C. 7 Jewels . . . a re-cased "melt" or 1/100th of the time, bought with an Open Face Case.

Then . . . there were some open-case movements we find cased in a hunter case . . .

Dave I have gotten two of my best hunter cases done this way, why? Drugs, Alcohol, watching too much H&R Puffin Stuff, who knows. I corrected the situation with a high end orphaned hunter movement and took the OF movement that was in the hunter case and gave it a fitting OF case.

But Dave, thats an obvious reuse of the case because of the extra screw marks in the case. What about the sidewinders without extra screw marks where the possibility of the case being bought for the movement? While having a new case being bought doesnt eliminate the possibility of the original case being scrapped, its a greater possibility of the case being scraped because it was worn imho.

I also think the timing of watches made in the 1890's -1910 being recased into cheaper open face cases makes sense. Because if they were in 20-25 year gold filled cases the watch case would have worn out about the time of the great depression. Recasing would have been done in the cheapest way if at all. Even following the depression a lot of people didnt have the funds to spend on bling but tended to buy things at a good price that lasted.

With less Gold Filled and Solid Gold Hunter cases everyday, maybe the "sidewinder" will become more accepted.

IMHO, nothing wrong with a nice 3 or 4 oz Coin Silver OF case holding an Aurora or Rockford Hunter 18sz...

Something I have noticed that may have some relevance or may not. I have had a few RRG movements that were open face movements put into nickle hunter cases and an older repairman who worked on a lot of Union Pacific employees watches said some fellows liked that, particularly in the shops, because it lessened the chances of a broken crystal and dial. That made some sense to me, if the railroad inspectors did not object, because who knows what a wrench or pliers carelessly in contact with a watch might do.