Military and Hamilton collectors, what can anyone tell me about this interesting model 21 that just passed through eBay ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Marine-chronometer-Hamilton-5060-Ma...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Fred

Anyone ... anything?

Fred

Prototype - hmmm? -
Well if so same seller has another one up for auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Marine-Chronometer-Hamilton-Watch-C...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'd be real curious as to why Hamilton would have produced a model like this with day of week indicator when not an 8 day movement. They did not make one as a prototype I'm aware of. How do you adjust the day of week w/o moving the hand after it's wound down? I'll look through some books - looks interesting but I wonder if really all correct?

Refer to Marvin Whitney's books - it does show this as a 4-Orbit or Individual Orbit type. He says 'the orbited type was designed for navigation in the Pacific where day-of-the-week hand indicated the Greenwich Day - the day in which the time and position of certain navigational starts was given in the navigator's Nautical Almanac. The idea was to elinminate possible errors resulting from local calendar changes at the International Date Line."

Marvin also says Hamilton produced only 27 of these between May 1945 and December 1956. More info provided,

Now I'm kinda interested!

Ok - a little more reading in Marvin's books and I'm not sure about the one's this fellow had/has up for sale. Marvin says that these individual orbit models were 4E and the 2E types were for the 12 hour movement. The ones for sale on Ebay are 2E types. The dial layout shown by Marvin is also different. Could this be a dial variation and a 12 hour movement marriage??? Or does Marvin only know part of the Hamilton story?

Think these on Ebay really need a hands on inspection before parting with the bucks.

I have not had the dial off of a Model 21, but I understand that the 4 orbit works is all under the dial. I.e. you can fit it to any model 21. If that is the case, it would not be surprising to see some of these made up after market with odd serial numbers. The dials on the eBay ones have the same geometry as in Whitney, but they have been rotated 90 degrees.

When you see something like this from Russia it raises a least a small alarm bell. The mitigating argument is that the price on the one currently for sale would not seem to justify the effort to fake it.

These normally sell for about twice the price of a regualr Model 21 and often quite a bit higher. Whitney quotes the one that sold for $6600 in the Bundens sale and I recall tha Model 21's in the same sale sold for $1200 to $1500.

Thanks Tom and Doug!

Does Whitney note the serial numbers on the 27 made, or suggest that these were in a discreet serial block?

Fred

Fred, None that I can locate. I sent an email to Don. Possibly he might be able to find out more information on this model (called the 221 I believe).

I did send the 'seller' some questions on this chronometer. Response was " it is all works, the chronometer well holds time. All four dials carry out the functions. It not for appearance. It is all precisely shows day of week, capacity of a spring, hours and seconds."

I'm taking the 4E vs 2E numbers Marvin mentions as being accurate, but as Tom mentioned, these could be "made up after market with odd serial numbers".

Hello everyone,
I just returned from a much needed vacation, and before I left I showed pictures of the original one on Ebay to the resident Model 21 expert and he said " I think its a fake" ( quote un-quote. ) Look closely at the spacing on the dial. Several years ago two individuals in the north east U. S. ( who for now shall remain un-named ) made up a fake 4 orbit, and its still out there somewhere. These clocks bring big bucks ( 10k to 15k ) Bob Revels sold for 13k after he passed away.
Regards
Fred

Here is what I received from Don........Hope this helps with additional info from Don...comments....

"I think I found it. We have the military contract records for WWII. In the model 21 section is list several orders for model 21 with parts number of 42213, which was listed as having a 12 hr white dial. In 1944 there is a special order for Northwest Instrument Company of Seattle for 7 part number 42254, black 24 hr dial. Here are the dates 7/14/ 8/15/10/9, 12/2 and 11/17/1944. I assume these were delivery dates. Serial numbers are not listed in these records. This shows that Hamilton did make up special chronometers under the 2E serial number system. They did not start using the 3E and 4E numbers until much 1945 or later.

I may have missed other special orders, or they may have missed them in this summary. I think this is enough evidence to say that the chronometer is original."

AND....

"Here is what I found. According to the production summary of 1957 there were 11,239 model 21, 42 model 121 and 27 model 221 made. The 121 is a black 24 hr dial and the 221 is the four orbit. (By the way we have green cards for up to 2E13087 dated 5/21/70).

We have the green cards for 20 model 221 with serial numbers 4E001-4E020. The green card followed the chronometer through production, giving the dates for jewelling, etc. The last one was completed originally in 2/20/48, but was reconditioned in 6/10/53. This leaves 7 unaccounted for.

I then looked up the sales ledger record for 2E4807, the number listed for the chronometer on Ebay. It was completed 6-2-44 and sold the same day to 64-1078 (we do not know to whom this account number belongs). There was nothing to indicate that this chronometer was different from any other model 21. The green card showed the chronometer was sent for pre-test on 4/17/44. Again, there was nothing on the card to indicate that this chronometer was special.

We have a model 121 in our museum. It is 2E12283 and not listed as a 3E. We have green cards for 3E001-3E040. The 1957 records gives 42 as the number of model 121 produced. This leaves two unaccounted for. The green card for 2E12283 shows nothing that says the chronometer has a 24 hour dial.

So it appears that 2 model 121 and 7 model 221 were made before they gave them a special 3E or 4E serial number. The only proof I have of this is the 2E model 121 in hour museum and the 2E model 221 on Ebay. I have no record that these chronometers were made up special, or altered at some later date. This is not unusual for Hamilton. They often did special orders."

In WWII, the U.S. supplied lots of equipment to the USSR under the "Lend Lease" program, as did Canada, for that matter. Lots of stuff was shipped through the North Sea to the USSR, past the U-Boats, Luftwaffa, etc. This fine chronomiter may have been part of the cargo which made it.

Best regards,

Greg.

Hi all,
I think Greg is very close to being on the right track concerning these two chronometers and I need to retract/clarify my statement about them being fake. I dont think the chronometers were faked for the purpose to defraud, but I dont believe these two were done by Hamilton. The quality of the boxes, the box material ( the hinges and handles) and the dial are not up to Hamilton standards. And there is nothing in the original Hamilton records to indicate Hamilton ever built such a model. I think a better quote would have been " I think these were converted ". IMHO these two chronometers were standard model 21's that were probably sent to Russia during the war and Russia converted them to their present configuration. The true 4 orbits ( model 221 ) were made from May 1945 until December 1956. Only 27 were produced and all had the number designation "4E". These are very rare and few are known to still exist. Also very rare are the "3E" chronometers made for the Army/Air Force. These 24 hour black dial chronometers were produced from 1942 until 1947 and only 42 of these were made. Like the "4E's very few of these have survived. As time permits I can post additional information on the 3E chronometers, including pictures of the only known surviving 3 unit box set.
Regards
Fred

Also,
The Hamilton records can be confusing at best. The records I have conflict with what Doug has posted above. Northwest Instrument did indeed purchase chronometers on 4 of the dates posted above, but these were 3E models with the following serial numbers:
8/15/1944...3E0025
11/2/1944...3E0026
11/17/1944..3E0027
11/17/1944..3E0024
Two units were sold on 10/9/1944 ( numbers 3E0022 & 3E0023 to contract number 64-17354. This number is believed to be an Army/Air Force contract number. I cant explain the differences in the records.
Regards
Fred

Um, I might be wrong, but the dial does not match what is found in the most respected references. Both the "Military timepieces" and "The ships chronometer" disagree with the dial configuration as authentic Hamilton. Please be cautious in your "hunting".

I would be very, very cautious on this one. Actually, not worth the risk...

While we are on the topic, the other "odd" model 21 is the Model 21-bc with the additional break circuit detent. I had been wanting one of these for some time and was able to get one at the last J&H sale. Does anyone have information on these beyond what is in Whitney's books?

Anything is possible, but I would put my vote on the not authentic side of the argument. All of the possibles listed so far are not exact matches - also they are all 1944 and 1945 and 1950's while the dial and movement on this have 1941 on them which appears to be a contract date. While there are a few authentic period watches and clocks items coming out of Russia these days, in my experience it is wisest to assume anything from Russia, Eastern Europe, China or Southeast Asian countries is not authentic, unless there is very, very strong evidence to the contrary. There is a highly skilled group of people in these countries cranking out forged and altered antiques of all kinds, including timepieces, using high-tech equipment that make their work difficult to tell from real antiques. The profits for them in this business are large, the government controls in their countries are minimal at best and ineffective when they sell internationally in places like Ebay, and it is very much worth their while.

Jim has stated an unfortunate truth.

Now that the good stuff has become harder to find in these places, fakes are being made in large numbers.

Greg

I agree that suspicion is warranted, but the recent sale price was $2900. That seems like a small premium given the work involved in engraving a dial and making the motion work.

The other factor is that a forgery would presumably be accurate, while these examples have a distinct difference from the Hamilton production.

I believe the most reasonable theory is tht they were produced in Russia because they needed dateline capable marine chronometers and did not have the Hamilton 4 orbits available. They may also have preferred the changed layout of the dial.

One could consider these much more rare than the "authentic" ones, since as far as we know only two were produced.

In addition to outright forgeries, there are also many even more dangerous altered items where "inprovements" are added to make something appear to be more rare.

$2,900 provides a very substantial profit margin for someone in a place like Russia where there are a great many skilled watchmakers who were never paid much of anything during the USSR days and were put out of work when the broke up into independent countries. If one assumes the cost of having an American or Western European watchmaker make up something like this watch from original and newly fabricated parts then I would agree that the profit margin would be modest at best since they command serious per hour wages, but that is not the case in a place like Russia where many good watchmakers would be glad for the work at a minimal salary. Also, keep in mind there is still quite a bit of horological equipment and machinery there from the Soviet era that can be used to make watch and clock parts. The Soviet Union never completely transitioned to the digital timepiece age like other parts of the world have done - they were still heavily into mechanical timepieces of all kinds using old and proven designs. One of the hallmarks of Soviet technology was to take designs from the West and make their own versions for very long periods of time. A good example is the Jaeger aircraft clocks of the 1930s where the Soviets made exact reproductions for many decades. The currently produced models of Russian aircraft clocks are still heavily based on these old designs.

Of course anything is possible, but I am still not swayed that this is legitimate. I would be swayed, of course, if something were to be found in the Hamilton archive material, but as was mentioned above, the library did not find anything about this particular version.

Serial number 5060 was indeed a Navy Contract range serial number. What strikes me as odd is the movement does not seem to be aligned with the bowl. The slot and movement pin are usually at 1200 verses 5:00 in the image. Also, would the added complications have increased the jewel count above the standard 14?..Mabye, maybe not. I do know that moving the wind indicator to a different location changes the whole movement configuration. The Hamilton 4-orbit in Whitney's shows a wind indicator at 1200, and the day bit at 0600. Not so with the chronometer pictured.