Display Watch
| watch index | 59 | |
| country | American | |
| piece name (title): | Hampden Special Railway, model 3 | |
| set | lever | |
| jewels | 23j | |
| size | 18s | |
| plate | full | |
| plate finish | two tone | |
| date | 1899 | |
| long comment | Gent's 18Size, gold-plated open face pocket watch, Special Railway Grade, made by the Hampden Watch Company of Canton, Ohio, circa 1899, Warranted B&B Royal | |
| case style | other | |
| case material | gold | |
| serial number | 1258459 | |
| maker | ||
| movement | ||
| escapement | ||
| case | 18Size, gold plated open face pocket watch with polished back cover with engraved flora in the Art Nouveau style (c. 1880-1910), the inside of the cover shows that it was made by the Philadelphia Watch Case company, carrying the logo B&B for a 20 year gold plated case. A suppressed fluted ball pendant and oval bow is seen at the three position. | |
| case marks | ||
| dial and hands | White enameled dial with bold Arabic hour chapter, open minute ring with red Arabic markers placed every five minutes along the edge of the dial, subsidiary seconds @6 adn the dial marked 'Hampden Watch Company' in the upper dial. Steel Spade hands. | |
| notes | Hampden Dueber Watch Company:
This watch making company began as a collaboration of Don Mozart and George Samuel Rice of New York. They formed the New York Watch Company in 1866 in Providence, R.I. Shortly thereafter they moved to Springfield, Ma. where in 1877 the company was renamed the Hamden Watch Co. John Dueber was a manufacturer of watch cases in 1864, but in 1886 he purchased a controlling interest in the Hamden Company. The name became Hampden-Dueber in 1886. In 1889 the company moved to Canton, Ohio. They were producing 600 watches per day. By 1888 the company was using both the Dueber Watch Company and the Hamden Watch company names, and this continued until 1923 when they called the company the Dueber-Hampden Watch Company until 1931 when they sold the company to a Russian firm.
Philadelphia Watch Case Company: MR. THEOPHILUS ZURBRUGG bought out the watch case company of Leichty & Le Bouba in 1884, in Philadelphia, Pa. 1888 he changed the name to the Philadelphia Watch Case Co. He made various types of cases, using a crown as one trademark and an arm and hammer as another. The company moved to Riverside, N.J. in 1902. "In 1904 this man managed a series of mergers, which brought together his own Philadelphia Watch Case Co., Bates and Bacon, Crescent and the Keystone Watch Case Co." From page 7: "... After a series of mergers in 1904 the name became the Keystone Watch Case Co., Riverside, N.J." A different report from above shows that: "... the history provided in legal documents for the anti-trust case against Keystone ... states that all of the capital stock of a newly organized Philadelphia Watch Case Co. (August 1900) was owned by Keystone." Jerry Treiman in a message board thread about a U.S. Watch Co. Watch. And in fact, the history of the Philadelphia Watch Case Co. is bound up with that of the T. Zurbrugg Co. and of the Keystone Watch Case Co. It was the T. Zurbrugg Co. which, having moved to Riverside, NJ in 1898, purchased the case business from J. Muhr & Bro. (successor to H. Muhr's Sons) and thus gained the use of the trade marks for Crown and Lion cases. The T. Zurbrugg Co. was apparently absorbed by the Philadelphia Watch Case Co. when it was incorporated by Zurbrugg and others in 1899. This is indicated on Philadelphia's letterhead which included a small banner reading "Successors to T. Zurbrugg Co." That letterhead can be seen in an open letter to the trade, published when Philadelphia bought Bates and Bacon in January 1901. In 1901, the Philadelphia Watch Case Co. had purchased the U.S. Watch Co. at Waltham, only a little more than a year after NY Standard was purchased by Keystone and Zurbrugg. That was at the same time, that the three companies, Zurbrugg, NY Standard and Philadelphia, opened a shared office on New York's Maiden Lane. But, it must be kept in mind that, by that point, Zurbrugg and Keystone were essentially the same company. The stated purpose in an article describing Philadelphia's purchase of the United States Watch Co., Waltham, Mass. was "to have a large output of high grade watches" but that didn't exactly happen, at least not under the Philadelphia name. Instead, Keystone (the real owner) purchased the rights to use the Howard name on watches and ran the company as the E. Howard Watch Co. Almost as if to add insult to injury, the names used on the cases were Keystone and Crescent. |
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