Hamilton First Electric?

[Nookster]

I recently acquired this watch. It is from the historic Hamilton vault. It's an interesting piece that is described below. This may be the watch Hamilton first used to experiment on the "Electric Watch?" I honestly don't know. It was kept in the Hamilton Archives and so at least I know it was important to them. The dial is not a standard Palisades dial, and the two stems are what threw me until I did some research and found this from some Hamilton Notes.

"The Pillar plate was altered by drilling outbanking screw holes forming an electric escapement.

 

[Chris Radek]

Whoah. Is the pallet fork unusual in some way to make use of those special banking pins? I assume they are insulated from the pillar plate?

 

[Nookster]

I am out of town, but when I return I will get some up close photos for ya.

I didn't have the time to open this one up, but I will at some point. I really don't like messing with the prototypes, I leave most of them be.

I acquired a radio time prototype Hamilton, I took it apart and got that one running. There were some super odd parts in it. I was super careful in cleaning it as I knew if I lost one part I was in big trouble.

 

[Bryan Eyring]

The very first Hamilton electric watch is well documented and can be found here:

Hamilton Important & Rare EM-1 Prototype, The First Complete | Lot #56067 | Heritage Auctions

Can you please provide the written provenance that states this was an electric model?

Your specimen appears to be for balance wheel timing via signal monitoring at pallet fork-to-banking pin contact.

 

[Bryan Eyring]

I'm also curious to know about your radio time Hamilton. Does it have a dial similar to the following?

 

[Nookster]

Bryan, all I have in the notes is "The Pillar plate was altered by drilling outbanking screw holes forming an electric escapement." I don't know for sure, but I believe a battery was attached on the one side opposite of the crown to conduct current? I don't know much about the watch, I purchased it from the Gelson estate directly, and read some notes
about it that were given to me, this is all I know. I am only guessing that it was their first attempt at looking into an electric watch?

Your dial is super cool, fantastic looking as well as those hands and sub second hand. What's under the hood of that beauty?

Here is a link to the radio time, it is now fully functional. If the subs is at the 20 second mark, it sets to the 12 on that half of the dial, and if it's at the 40 second mark, it will set to the 12 on that side of the dial.
Vintagehamiltonwatch on Instagram: “A super rare prototype Hamilton 987A “radiotime” watch. When you press in the crown, it resets the sub second hand to the 12. Cased in a…”

 

[Jeff Hess]

terrific thread