Hunters Case?

To be classified as a Hunters case.. Does the watch have to have a solid cover. I see so many times looking up a watch, that is calls for a HC, everything else is the same except for the HC. Did somewhere down the line, of the life of the watch someone has removed the HC to put a crystal or am i missing something?

[Dr. Jon]

A hunting case has a cover to protect the crystal. Watches for these cases wind at 3 o'clock.

Sometimes an owner will grow tired fo having to open the watch to see the time. Two solutions are a half hunter and a cut hunter. A half hunting case watch has a small hol eusually with a second crystal and a misdified hour hand so you can which hand is which in the smaller opening. Some times this is a modifaction to a case and usually it is how the case was made intially. Half hunting case watches are usually more expensive than full hunting. I have not seen any US made half hunting cases.

Cut hunting cases have the cover cut out to take a crystal. This is usually an after market change and I have seen this on US cases. I have also seen cut hunting cases with open face movements (Winding at 12). These date from when cases and movements were sold separately and jewelers routinely had good goldsmiths on call. I suspect the buyer liked the hunting case and had it changed for the movement they bought. The outer crystal with bezel will pop up when the crown is pressed.

When a gold case is scrapped the movement may be recased in a much cheaper case. Often a hunting case movement went into an open face case to become a "side winder". Its a mismatch but such is life.

A case has to have a front cover to be a Hunting case. The idea was that this cover protects the crystal and dial watch while the wearer is hunting. If it has no such cover it is something else. I class a cut hunter as still a hunter because it has an outer cover, even if has been cut open.

[Tom McIntyre]

Just to reiterate:

A hunting case movement winds at 3:00.

A hunting case case has a pop up front cover (with variants as Jon describes).