I purchased what appeared to be a blank Ball dial, the appearance of the numbers etc. lead me to think that. Also the dial feet location seemed to only fit those of a Ball Hamilton 18s.

The dial would appear to my untrained eye to have never been installed on a movement, the dial appears hairline free, the dial feet also do not have the marks that you normally see from the dial screws biting into them.

Here is a photo of the dial & then my next post will explain something I noticed but do not understand.

I have yet been able to photograph the following.

If you hold the dial at just the right angle to the light where the normal Ball trademark would be, you can see the trademark.

The trade mark is faint & hard to read but after looking it over for several hours & trying to figure out how to photograph it, the markings appear to be those of a brotherhood dial. Searching this site for brotherhood dials the closest I can come up with is B of LE, B of LF.

I can make out the curved Trade Mark lettering at the top, then the symbol which I think has the capital L but I am not positive it could also be a F.
Under the symbol is the curved word Standard & then below that the straight line Ball & Co. Cleveland.

Again these marks are very faint & if you can continually move the dial under the light you can actually read the words.

It also appears to me these marking are actually raised lettering & if it did made any sense I would almost think the trade mark symbols were put on but then another layer of white enamel was placed over that & fired.

I don't know the dial making process that was used in making these dials & I am hoping maybe this all makes sense to someone.

Another question I have is, I have never tried to remove a trademark from a dial, if by chance that was done, would it have left some other markings such as scrapes or gouges etc.

The dial doesn't exhibit any signs to me that is was altered, the few marks I can see on the dial, again by moving under an angled light appear to be random & more like a 100 years of just laying around occasionally rubbing across something.

So anyway, hopefully I have wasted everyone's time. I am just puzzled.

Here is a photo of the back of the dial, I will replace it with a better one once my camera charges. This is with a scanner so it is out of focus.

Tom

Well I worked on it a little more & got some results.

After thinking about this more, I was wondering if the 1st step in applying the logo was to apply it by machine in white causing the logo to be visible at an angle but then the next step was coming back with black which would only adhere to the white logo. Basically like a printing press, where printers block letters are set down forming words & then a light layer of ink is applied which adheres to the raised portion of the letters

This image shows the B in the last line of Ball & Co. Cleveland

This is the complete line Ball & Co. Cleveland.

You can't really make it completely out in the photo but you get the idea perhaps.

This is part of the lettering in TRADE.

The dial is actually bright white & with a loupe looks smooth as glass, but when you zoom in real close you start to see the flaws.

Great detective work Tom!

Tom,

Quite a puzzle! If they had changed their minds, you would think they would have put another logo above it! Perhaps it was "imperfect" and quality control just rejected it rather than try to redo or complete it.

Nice little piece of ephemera for your collection!

happy hunting,

Thanks Bill

I think it was a reject after it went through the 1st stage of applying the logo, it looks like right in the center perhaps a hair or something got fired into the dial & this got rejected. Still amazing that it has lasted this long with being tossed out of the line.

Tom