Ball-Hamilton and Cases

[Steven Mercer]

I have been looking around at 18 Size Ball-Hamiltons. Most I have seen are in "Ball" marked cases. Some are not in a "Ball" marked case. Some are obvious recases, some look original (at least to my newbie eyes).

A foot note in Shugarts mentions a 1902 ad that states, "We do not sell movements or cases separately."

Before 1902, did Ball-Hamiltons come in different cases? If so, does anybody have any idea about what serial number that would have been prior to?

Steve

[Steven Mercer]

I have been looking around at 18 Size Ball-Hamiltons. Most I have seen are in "Ball" marked cases. Some are not in a "Ball" marked case. Some are obvious recases, some look original (at least to my newbie eyes).

A foot note in Shugarts mentions a 1902 ad that states, "We do not sell movements or cases separately."

Before 1902, did Ball-Hamiltons come in different cases? If so, does anybody have any idea about what serial number that would have been prior to?

Steve

[terry hall]

The run B163501 - B163800 is dated 1901 in an Ehrhardt list and is Identified as a Hamilton movement. It seems to be the only B prefix run in the early production. B prefix numbers higher than this are either waltham 16 size or the B600,000 Hamilton 16s. Could this run with the B prefix be a typo?

Non B prefix Hamilton numbers 170,001 - 171,000 are listed at 1902. Other Hamilton movement numbers below these preceed these dates and go back to 1894.

[This message has been edited by terry hall (edited 07-28-2002).]

[Kent]

One of the difficulties I've had in researching this is that although Ball was selling complete watches by 1902, its not clear when he only used signed cases. There are very early Ball watches in Ball signed cases, but many that seem to be original that aren't signed. By the way, a 1902 Ball catalog is reproduced in "American Pocket Watch 1977 Price Indicator, Identification and Price Guide," Roy Ehrhardt, Heart of America Press, Kansas City, MO, 1977 (A new edition is still in print, see http://www.hoapress.com ).

A 1905 Ball catalog says that the watches are sold complete in Ball Model cases. So we know that for sure any Official RR Standard belongs in a Ball Model case after 1904.

Kent

[Steven Mercer]

Kent and Terry

Thanks for the information.

So, I guess it would be fair to say that Ball-Hamilton's before 1902, could be in cases other than "Ball" signed ones, the lower the serial number, the better the chance that it was not in a Ball marked case.

I will have to keep looking for the lower serial numbers. :biggrin:

Steve

[Kent]

Steve said: So, I guess it would be fair to say that Ball-Hamilton's before 1902, could be in cases other than "Ball" signed ones, ...[HR][HR]

Well, not quite. It would be fair to say that at some undetermined time before 1902, Ball seemed to market a number of his watches in non-Ball signed cases.

Kent :smile: