Wow!, it looks like the day it left the store! you have a piece there..and the pictures are quite professional, clear and sharp, congratulations both for your watch and your skill.
Posts: 325 | Location: Near Mexico City, Mexico | Registered: July 05, 2003
Hello Larry, Really a beautiful watch, and a very early production, do you have the history behind this watch, i.e. original owner, where purchased? This is the lowest s/n I've seen on this forum.
Extremely nice photos.
Thanks, Robert
Posts: 553 | Location: Southwest Virginia U.S.A. | Registered: December 27, 2004
Carlos--Thank you for the kind remarks--I have struggled much with digital photography.
Robert--Thank you. I purchased the watch from a friend (throw away the price guide). He is more of a watch trader than collector and obtained the watch from "an old man" by trading a solid gold Elgin of some sort for it. This older person had owned the watch for a long time and was offered $600 for it a few years ago, but declined back then. Not a very interesting background history and the watch has not spoken--wish I knew more!
Larry
Posts: 111 | Location: From the Heartland of America | Registered: February 17, 2005
Larry, Thanks for correcting me, the lighting will definitely play tricks in photography. Do you think the company officials and employees had the opportunity to purchase the very low serial numbers of this new model in 1940? Just a thought!
Robert
Posts: 553 | Location: Southwest Virginia U.S.A. | Registered: December 27, 2004
Right now Larry, Frank and I are on the phone together. We're having a good laugh. Larry is a good sport, hopefully all of us have had some fun. He is to be congratulated for his amazing find.
Lindell
Larry's watch shown in the 1940-41 Catalog...
Posts: 10553 | Location: Northeastern Ohio in the USA | Registered: November 19, 2002
Lindell and I were just having some fun, no malice/fraud intended. It DOES show you what a powerful tool Photoshop can be. Stare and Compare, nothing like having the watch in your hand. Caveat Emptor and all that stuff.
It actually does bring up a side issue that is not for this forum exactly, but I've bought some watches that were "CLEANED" up via photoshop so that rust, abonormalities, didn't show in the Ebay pic. The pic was of the watch, just "enhanced". Now I have no problem with taking a picture from the best angle, but actually toying with certain parts of the image to oblititerate or change change certain "rustful" parts of the watch seem to me to go beyond the pale. But as we've just shown, it is easily done.
Best regards,
Frank "407" Kusumoto
P.S.-And congrats to Larry for having such a great example of from what I've I seen is the lowest documented SN#. We all had a big laugh looking at my "photoshopped" image.
At first I wasn't going to sleep well because TWO (2) earlier 992-B examples showed up so darn quickly yesterday......then I really couldn't sleep at all for trying to figure out how I'm going to get even with a certain pair of 185 chapter members!
Posts: 111 | Location: From the Heartland of America | Registered: February 17, 2005
Actually 8 adjustments refers to 5 positions plus temperature and isocronism. It really would be correct but Hamilton used that reference for only a comparatively few watches in the 1920s and never again so far as I'm aware.
The really scary part is that Frank and I with limited experience in retouching came up with fairly credible examples. It proves that someone who was really out to deceive could actually sell a non-existant watch to an unsuspecting buyer.
The "six-position sundial" is a good one!
What a fun topic!
Posts: 10553 | Location: Northeastern Ohio in the USA | Registered: November 19, 2002