Hamilton 950L

[shawnaraye]

Here is a pic of the 950L with the Elinvar hairspring.

[shawnaraye]

Here is a pic of the 950L with the Elinvar hairspring.

[terry hall]

It definitely has a 'non-elinvar' split balance.....

Looks like a tear-down would be in order to check component numbers of parts... balance cock, balance, pallet bridge, etc

[Don Dahlberg]

The "Elinvar" is just written on the pallet bridge. Perhaps they just replaced the pallet bridge with one from a 992E. This might be just a case of bad parts swapping for repair at some point. It might be that they ordered a new pallet bridge at some later date in the 1930s and Hamilton sent them one with the word Elinvar on it. Otherwise it is clearly a bimetallic balance.

This batch of 950's were (1652001-1653000)went to the Finishing Department on 8/10/22 and 2/9/26. This shows you that the higher grade watches did not sell very fast and their line was often side-lined. In this case the batch was split and sent to the Finishing Department some 4 years apart. They may even get side-lined in the Finishing Department. To complicate matters in 1924 some 247 950 pendant set watches were converted to 950 lever set watches. Thus there was no need to send all this batch of 950Ls through.

There was another batch (1664001-1665000)that went to the finishing department on 8/3/25, this between the two parts of the previous batch. The next batch (unless I missed one) was not until serial numbers 2383001-2384000 that went to the finishing department 8/18/26 and 9/2/27.

This is why serial number tables can be misleading in judging when a watch was sold, at least for slow moving models.

Don

[shawnaraye]

Thank you very much Terry & Don. Hope to have more discussions later.

[michael chamelin]

Don, In looking over my 950's I have one serial # 1,575,815 that is like the ones you are describing i.e. this watch started off in the factory as destined to be a pendant watch but was converted to lever while in the finishing department, this is obvious by looking at the pillar plate and observing the cutouts for pendant machining but having only lever accesories. All numbers are matching. The work is without question factory and all parts are original Hamilton. Do you have any info on this run as far as when it went through the finishing department. I have recorded #1,575,410....mine 815... and 948 as being lever set when they are listed in my Hamilton serial number ledger as being originally designated as a 950 Pendant. I do have # 1,575,569 recorded as being a true pendant set 950. Any info would be appreciated and of course this would reduce the production of 950 Pendant set watchs. Thanks and Happy Hunting!.........

[Don Dahlberg]

1,575401-1576000 MB 950P went to the finishing department on 11/12/20 and 10/10/21

The serial numbers just before and after are 950L batches.


I just found another note in the section on 950L:

"1925 -- 1575401 - 500
--------1575901 - 1576000 Most of this lot were changed from pendant set to lever set."

Your 1575815 is not in this group, but apparently it should be. Notice that the other note from the 950P section said "1924" instead of "1925" and gave the number as "247" instead of "most" of 200. The records were not perfect in the 1940s, but are close enough.

Don

[michael chamelin]

Thanks so much Don, that is much as I suspected, so from what you are finding in these notes I am going to assume that my 950 was finished in 1925. Any specific record of what month or to whom it was sold?, ...any further info would be appreciated. I am also assuming that the ones that ARE pendant set in this run which are close in number to mine are the last pendant set 950's made. Guess there was not much demand for the pendant 950's and their sales were quite slow, thus the conversion to lever set for many in this run. Thanks again and Happy Hunting!

[Don Dahlberg]

Yes, the pendant set was discontinued in 1925. They produced 7 that year, and had 21 returned. They did sell 52. They sold another 6 in 1926, 1 in 1927, 1 in 1928 and 3 in 1929. They only sold 5,033 total.

Then they said a few had been returned and resold since 1929.

Don