Barry Hanstien's 185 auction

Barry shipped this at the speed of light! Not normally something I would collect. Ball and Co watches are not expected to be factory cased.

As the Ball co ad in 1902 found in the 1977 Erhardt p 59 says all watches are shipped complete with case, there is a possibility that Ball Hamilton watches after 118600 could be cased in Ball model cases.

But either way a fun item and glad Barry made it available.

happy hunting,

The Ball catalog for 1901 carries the same wording as to complete watches only. From the wording throughout both catalogs (1901 and 1902) the announcement appears to apply equally to 18s and to the "new thin model three quarter plate 16s watch" then being introduced. In all of this we must remain aware of the time lag between factory allocation of a movement number block and the marketing date.

At that time (1901 - 1902) I think Ball was moving fairly rapidly towards realising the operational concept of a watch company issuing cased watches having movements marked Ball Watch Co. No doubt there was a period of transition. The dials being applied were transitory at the same time.

We need to see catalogs from 1899 and 1900.