The last Howard stragglers.......

[Harold Visser]

This is for those that have an interest in Howard history……Here is a picture from the original factory records of the very last E. Howards’ sold. Each one of these was probably made to order as the finish date, the first column, and the delivery date, the last column, were on the same day…..From Aug. 1904, when E. Howard & Co. was supposedly out of the watch business, to April 1910 a grand total of only 15 movements were assembled and then the very last one not being assembled and sold until 16 years later, on June 7, 1920! The large Nsz and 18sz hunters had fallen completely out of favor by 1920, but obviously J. A. Clemett must have still had a soft spot in his heart for these old Howards. Some of the other buyers listed are; Rev. D.H. Waldron, T.A. Cromby and J.S. MacDonald.
These were all SER.VII ¾ plate hunter models. Also interesting to note is that the records list the size as 18s, not N sz. and that they were all up-jeweled to 17j including a 21 jewel version. Another odd entry is the “grade 9” designation, normally all the SER.VIIs had grade 7 as the highest grade available.
The Howard factory was making clocks at the time, so I have to assume these watches were probably made from leftover material and assembled by clockmaker employees …..
If anybody knows of the whereabouts of any of these, Serial # 226,801 to 226,816 I would appreciate hearing from you…. I’m interested to find out if these watches have the grade 9 Breguet hairspring and if they reside in an E.H.&Co. cases or not.
Thanks, Harold

[Fred Hansen]

Very interesting and thank you for posting Harold!

Are any other Howards besides this batch listed as 18 rather than N size in the records?

Fred

[Harold Visser]

Fred, only these 15 in all the of the ledgers were listed as 18sz instead of Nsz, though I'm fairly confident that they are actually Nsz movements as they were most certainly made from leftover material....