what the heck have I got here

[Brentc]

So its a sidewinding lever half hunter. It has a train on the dial . Very thick crystal says Hanover Special over the sub second hand. Inside the first case it is stamped Baystate Imperial C oin with a serial number 75735. The cover has a horse applied in some fashion not hand painted. The movement is stamped swiss near the hinge area and has a serial number 785630. It appears to be adjusted with a key and is stamped Hanover Special with a stamped train.Can anyone tell me anything about this watch?

 

[Paul Sullivan]

Brent,

Hard to say what you have, but I punched Hanover Pocket Watch here and came up with a few threads. One is from the encyclopedia article "Swiss Fakes" (here), which list Hanover as one of them. But yours being labeled "Swiss" would sort of cancel that. In any event you can lokk at the various posts by typing "Hanover pocket watch" in the search bar. Also I think this post would be better moved to "European & Other Pocket Watches" for better input than mine.

That being said there was a Baystate watch case co. (here), which was taken over by Crescent in 1893. Your case says "Coin" which would indicate a silver content below sterling. You can read about it here, scroll down to silver.

Regards,

Paul

 

[Jim Haney]

Moved to correct forum as requested.

 

[MartyR]

According to Mikrolisk the trademark "Hanover" was registered by a firm called Vve. de Louis Goering (vve short for veuve, or widow) of La Chaux de Fonds and they registered the trademark in 1905. It isn't clear whether they made or just sold watches and watch parts.

And also, interestingly, the trademark was registered by Trenton Watch Co of Trenton, NJ between 1885 and 1908! So far from being a "Swiss fake" it seems likely that that Trenton had the movements made for them by Goering and then cased them in America.