These two Hamiltons are a complete mystery and are probably very rare, possibly unique. There were purchased together and I've never seen another one.

Strangely, they house the first Swiss produced electric movement, the Landeron 4750. This movement appeared in 1961 and was in direct competition with Hamilton's own 505 movement. The 4750 movement always had the watch maker's name engraved on the balance plate, and these are no different.

So what are these "Huguenin Electrics" and why are they using a non-Hamilton electric movement in their watches? The only information I've been able to find on this comes from Don Sauer's excellent book, "Time for America", which covers the history of the Hamilton watch company.

"The factory of A. Huguenin Fils was founded in 1857 and was one of the pioneers among watchmakers in the mountains of Neuchatel. Hamilton purchased this company in 1959 in the hope of increasing the company's share of the premium-price watch market. Henry Huguenin was appointed Directory of the company and Huguenin manufactured watches under the Hamilton name as well as continuing to make top-quality watches under the Huguenin name."

Here is my theory. Henry Huguenin had a pretty free hand in the running of the European operation at Neuchatel, and decided to produce a Hamilton Huguenin Electric containing the Landeron 4750, a local movement to him in Switzerland, and being used by many other companies like Wittnauer, Waltham, Clinton, etc...but maybe the Hamilton parent company back in Lancaster thought this was a bad idea and that it would cause marketing confusion around their 505-based electric watch brands...and therefore canned the project. Just an idea...if you know different, please let me know!

Fine looking watches and an interesting theory! There is still much to be uncovered about Huegenin's operations under Hamilton ownership. Hamilton discussed Huegenin occasionally in the employee magazine "Timely Topics," and offered cheery overviews in the annual reports to shareholders, but these give very little detail. We may never really know the story since the bulk of the sales records would have been kept in the now-defunct Swiss offices.

I doubt that Hamilton canned the Hugenin Electric. The Hamilton-Huegenin brand was intended to broaden Hamilton's market into Europe (at the same time as acting as a source for movements to import and case in the US). Hamilton had very little export presence under the main corporate brand anyway so there was no real reason to worry about the Landeron as a competing movement. These were not sold in the US and are obviously very rare here, but some made it across the Atlantic -- I have seen a few with that same dial design.

Although originally Hamilton confined the Huegenin brand to Europe (setting up a branch office in Brussels), later in the 1960s they marketed some high-end, limited edition watches in the US under the Huegenin name (without a hyphenated Hamilton). These were not successful.

Here is an article from the May/June 1959 issue of "Timely Topics" announcing the purchase of Huegenin.

There is more information on the Landeron movement here:
http://www.electric-watches.co.uk/make/landeron/index/index.php

and a link to a service manual. The manual indicates that the battery is accessed through a screw-out plug as in Accutron 214's but I can't see the battery access plug in the two Hamilton's that are shown in this post.

One of the things that I find interesting about the Landeron design is that they used a fixed circular coil around the movement, with a moving magnet on the balance. This is the reverse of the Hamilton 500 and 505 which has a moving coil with fixed magnets. However the first prototype electric Hamilton ever completed used a circular coil just like Landeron later adopted. The only difference is that the Landeron has the coil protected with a plastic shield whereas the Hamilton prototype ("EM-1") had an open coil.

The problem with this design was excessive battery consumption -- it takes a lot of energy to power the large coil, and this is essentially wasted. That is why Hamilton ultimately opted for the moving coil design, with its greater electrical efficiency.

Consequently the Landeron required an extremely large battery in order to power the watch for a year. Most watches with this movement had a huge screw-off battery opening on the back. I believe the Huegenin fitted the large battery inside the case back.

Here's the Hamilton prototype EM-1 from 1952, compare the basic design to the Landeron. Even the battery lead in the center of the movement is basically the same! (The EM-1 also had the battery fitted in a hole in the case back.)

Is not the LIP Electric movement the same type ? - fixed coil, magnet on balance.


DM

John, that electric-watches.co.uk site is mine; hope you found it useful.

Rene, many thanks for your insights and that Hamilton press cutting. I find it a real shame that, as time passes, we're less likely to find out why a particular business decision was taken. I'd love to know more about Vantage, Std. Time Corp, Huguenin, etc but I guess we never will...

Interesting to compare the L4750 with the Hamilton EM-1...they are similar although the L4750 benefited from a diode...as did the LIP. I guess the coil arrangement on the LIP is a little different to EM-1 and the L4750, in that it is a single straight tube arrangement rather than around the periphery of the case like the EM-1 and L4750.

There were at least 3 different battery arrangements for the L4750. The very early ones (and extremely rare today) had two batteries in two external "ears" on the left hand side of the watch case. Then there was the version that took the very wide WD-5 battery (see below); this occupied the whole width of the watch and was held in the inside of the back cover via a circlip. Finally, they moved over to a more traditional button cell that fitted in a true battery compartment in the back cover. You can see the different backs of the L4750 below --- these are from Clinton, Wittnauer, UNIC, Terium, Tradition, Waltham watches....

...which means these Huguenin's also have a different back to all other L4750s. They lack the large hexagon but instead have the more conventional slots.

I have quite a collection of watches containing the L4750, a few of which are shown below:

Thanks for posting the pictures; they are very attractive and I'm sure some of us will be looking for an example.

I especially like the one with the atomic orbit on the dial, having once worked in the uranium enrichment industry in the 70's and 80's. VERY nice!

Regards! Mark