My passion in watch collecting is the wrist watches produced by the Hamilton Watch Company. Although my greatest interest remains the solid gold mechanical wind watches of the 1920's and 1930's, my goal is to develop a small but representative collection of some of the greatest stlyes and designs produced by this company. To this end, my collection "must" include some of the more "modern" watches, such as the Flight, K-475, and the Ventura.

Recently I was offered the opportunity to buy one of the most rare and elusive examples of the Hamilton Ventura. As many of you know, the Ventura, the "first Electric Watch" was first produced in 1957. It was produced in 14K yellow gold. Later, a much smaller number were sold in 14K white gold. Export standards required a greater gold purity, and as a result, 18K yellow gold examples were exported to Europe. 18K Rose Gold examples were also produced for export to South America.

Last week a dealer/friend was offered this 18K Rose Gold Ventura. Shockingly, he wasn't interested, and thought that the asking price (2.5 times the Shugart high book value for this 4 star rated watch)was too high. Fortunately, he remembered about my obsession, and passed an extraordinary opportunity to me. I sent the watch to Rene Rondeau for his evaluation and restoration. I thought I would share with you photos of the watch (mine has the original silver dial), as well as Rene's thoughts on the watch, and the production of Rose Gold Ventura. Rene also owns one, with an amazing looking black dial. The photo of his black dial example is the true color of the case.

Rene had the following to say:

I got your watch today. What a beautiful piece.... It's curious that someone
so carefully tooled the inside of the case back to remove all markings except for the serial number. I wonder why? The number is in a different block from the others I have on file. Of six recorded rose gold Ventura numbers, there are four distinct blocks. They must have stamped these out in tiny numbers only as orders required. Usually they made white or 18K cases at the end of production runs of 14K yellow cases since the dies were already set up. Your number is S446102. I have over 5,000 electric serial numbers in my database but find no Venturas anywhere near that block. The closest watch I have on file is S446272, a Van Horn. It's interesting that this one is not in a conventional Ventura block. The dial markers and hands are not rose. Like all other known 18K rose Venturas they're yellow, but they tarnished with age and developed a darker hue. I went back into my files to check the original spec sheet on this model. It confirms that the part numbers for the dial and hands on the 18K rose Ventura were exactly the same as for the 14K yellow, so odd as it seems, these were not
made with matching color markers.

When I asked Rene about production numbers of the Rose Ventura, these were the thoughts he shared with me:

This is a tantalizing mystery. I have no real idea, unfortunately. With only
6 numbers on file, in four different blocks, there's nowhere near enough data
to extrapolate anything from. I can only base my guesses on relative scarcity.
I've seen 6 rose Venturas and know of one other for which I don't have a
number (sold in Europe years ago). Compare that to Altairs, for which I have 108
numbers on file. All evidence consistently points to production of 1600 on the
Altair, leaving about 1 in 16 as survivors. There were about 475 gold Pacers
made, in two different production runs. I have 35 on file. That's roughly 1 in
14 survivors.

If that admittedly limited data can be construed as a valid measure, it would
imply about 1 in 15 is an average survival rate, which would give us about
105 rose Venturas. My gut feeling is that somewhere between 100 and 150 is
*probably* about right, but it's only a gut feeling.

Photo 2

Curious "502" movement, only found on exported watches.

Rene's example with beautiful black dial. Note the color of the case....

Bill, with respect to production numbers -- has anyone checked with Wuischpard & Sons to see if they retain any records of this case production?

Wow! Great Idea!

THanks so much. I'm going to look into this.

Wow... what a beautiful rare watch! Apart from the example owned by Rene and pictured above, this is the only other 18K coral Ventura I've seen.

You're really on a roll with the great Hamiltons this summer!

I am not fond of Hamilton Electrics but this one could really change my mind!

I found another one: 18K rose gold Ventura.

I need to work on my camera skills....

2

Bill
that,s a beauty, you don,t need 2 of them you know Xmas is getting closer play the part of santa and send that to Monticello .

Bill H. said, above --- "Curious "502" movement, only found on exported watches."

Well I did find a complete 502 movement a couple of years back in a Hamilton Electric Uranus model, so some may have leaked out of Lancaster in regular watches.


Dan

Dan,

How did your Uranus get to the UK without being exported?

Since I found the watch on eBay in the USA it is probable that it had never been exported by the original US Hamilton Co. to either Europe or Sth. America.

It is more likely that my watch was assembled in the US sometime in the last 45 years from a spare 502 movement and a Uranus case. The Uranus was released in 1959 so would be expected to have a 500 or 500A movement.

In general I'm not sure that Hamilton Electrics were originally sold in the UK from 1957 onwards.

Dan

14K white Ventura, and 18K Rose.