[time-nuts] Info on Hamilton Railroad watch?

Chuck Harris cfharris at erols.com
Thu Jul 28 18:52:13 UTC 2011


It's a nice watch, probably about the best of the best for mass production
pocket watches.  It is, however a mass production watch, and there are tens
of thousands of them still in existence.  They were built for a goodly portion
of the 20th century... production stopped in the 1960's.

It is one of the most popular watches among the casual railroad watch collector.
As a result they are priced very high, and they have virtually all been subject
to having major pieces replaced with replicas... the dial being the most popular
item to replace.  The Montgomery dial is one of the most popular among the RR
watch crowd, so today there are probably more Hamilton 992B's with Montgomery
dials than were ever made by a large margin.

It is very rare to find a 992B that has all of its original parts, and comes
in its original case.  Most American pocket watches came from the factory
uncased, and the jeweler was expected to case them.  Since the railroad employee
was required to purchase his own watch, most came in very inexpensive utilitarian
cases... it is rare to find one in a fine case... so as a result many fine
watches were divested from their fine cases by RR watch dealers in order to make
something that never was.

OBTW, "lever set" means that you have to unscrew the front bezel to set the
watch. There is a lever under the edge of the front bezel that puts the watch
in setting mode.  Many 992B's are damaged by uninformed owners that try to
pull the stem out (successfully) while trying to set the watch.

The railroad owner of the watch never set the watch.  He brought it to a
dispatcher who set it to railroad time, and screwed the bezel back onto the
watch.  RR watches were a safety mechanism, as there was no other way to
schedule trains going in opposite directions on the same track.  Forbidding
the RR employee from setting the watch hopefully prevented train crashes.

-Chuck Harris

John Green wrote:
> I know there are those who have a lot of knowledge about pocket watches and
> railroad watches so, I know someone with a 992B Hamilton Railroad Special,
> 21 jewel, lever set, with a Montgomery dial. He seems to think this is a
> special watch. Is it?
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>



More information about the time-nuts mailing list