I just received this watch & before I describe it I wanted to explain how I came to own it & let anyone that saw the auction for it know I didn't get it underhanded.

After seeing David Abbe's loaner case Illinois I really admired it & thought I would keep an eye out for something similar.

I ran across this watch on Ebay, at the time the bid was at $6.00 but of course the reserve had not been met. I thought I would bid $500 to start, so that is what I did & it met the reserve & I was the high bidder.

The next day someone else had out bid me, I then began to figure out how high I could go at the end.

About a day later I saw where the auction had ended early & I thought someone had offered the seller money to end the auction. I emailed teh seller & asked him if he was going to re-list it, he wrote back that he had pulled the auction because the watch would not set, he told me that he had offered the high bidder a buy it now price but the bidder wanted a few days to get the funds together but the seller stated he wasn't willing to do that. He then offered it to me for the same price, he said if I didn't want it he was going to send it in for repair & then auction it again.

I bought the watch at that time.

When I received it yesterday I discovered that there was no problem with the watch, it appeared the seller did not realize this was a lever set watch.

So that is my tell of how I came to own this. The watch is a Ball Hamilton 18s 999 Serial number 497433 which according to the Gleason list puts it at 1906 & it is a 19 jewel.

The case is a Keystone Ball Model Silveroid case and no additional case screw marks are visible. The dial appears perfect.

The perfect looking dial.

The movement

Case marks

The case back is marked Capital City Jlry Co. #6 Indianapolis. Searching for this company I found where it was owned by a Charles & Stella Scanlin out of Indianapolis. Charles is also listed as a brakeman for a railroad, so I don't know if he did that at the same time or if that was prior to the jewelery business.

Thanks to David Abbe he was able to find where the business was listed as time inspectors for the Illinois Central Railroad in 1920.

Well thanks for takeing the time to read my story.

Tom

Tom,

What a nice story! I love happy endings! Great to see that the watch found a good caretaker.

Enjoy.

happy hunting,