The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Just a few more additions to the railroad watch collection:



Hamilton Grade 936 private label watch made for the Fleming Brothers of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Fleming Brothers were watch inspectors for the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railroad. I will soon be sending this watch off to the watchmaker for servicing.



Hamilton Grade 941 in a hunting case. This one will also be sent off for service.



This is my 16 size, 17 jewel Elgin BW Raymond. I replaced the case that it had when I bought it, since that case was for an Illinois Watch Company Bunn Special. In the second photo, you can see the slot I cut for the setting lever. Took less than five minutes to make using a Dremel tool.

They did some very nice work on these timepieces, attention paid to even the parts not often seen. A mechanical watch of this quality today would be what? Ten grand?

Those are really nice. I tried a couple of times to carry a pocket watch for daily use. They don't launder well.

Junk Yard Dog wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 12:40 am They did some very nice work on these timepieces, attention paid to even the parts not often seen. A mechanical watch of this quality today would be what? Ten grand?

That’s probably not far off the mark. Vortic Watch Company is converting old pocket watches to wrist watches. The watches they’re selling are in the $4k range and not even railroad grade. The average railroad watch had 8k gold jewel settings and 8k gold plating on the center wheel. The jewels were synthetic sapphire or rubies, but some railroad watches had a diamond capstone on the balance wheel.

Just got this watch back from the watchmaker today. I’ll be wearing it to Easter services tomorrow.




This is a Hamilton Grade 937 made in 1898 for Mr. H. V. Taylor of Waterloo, Iowa. It was a railroad approved watch at the time and Mr. Taylor was the watch inspector for the Illinois Central Railroad at that time. The watch was in need of cleaning and adjustment. Dave and I got into a conversation about hairsprings and how over cleaning eventually weakens them, causing the watch to lose time and necessitating addition of weight to the balance wheel to get the watch back in time.

Speaking of hairsprings and balance wheels, here’s one of three that were delivered today.



This balance wheel is for a Hamilton Grade 940 railroad watch. The spring is the hairspring and the diameter of the wire is that of a human hair. The screws attached to the balance wheel are weights. The balance wheel is the device that regulates the speed at which a watch runs and the hairspring must be vibrated to the balance wheel independently. This is a replacement for the balance wheel and hairspring in one of my Hamilton 936 watches. This part is one of the most expensive parts in a watch-this one was $110.00. My order had three of them, just in case one balance wheel might have a bad balance staff or issue. I inspected the pivots and the balance staffs all appear to be good.



Here’s the upper pivot of a balance staff as viewed through my watchmaker’s microscope. They’re so small that they have to be viewed through a microscope and require special tools to machine.

I’ll deliver the parts to the watchmaker next Saturday and hopefully he can get the watch back running properly.