When a Hamilton is a Howard . . .

Part of the Will Roseman series.

We all know that Hamilton purchased the Illinois Watch Company, but what is less known was Hamilton's purchase of another prominent watch company - the E. Howard Watch Company, the makers of the famous E. Howard and Howard pocket watches.

E. Howard was known to make some of the finest American pocket watches of their era. In fact Howard pocket watches were very much respected by the Swiss as the "finest in mechanical timepieces." Hamilton recognized this as well and in 1931, three years after the purchase of the Illinois Watch Company in 1928, Hamilton purchased the goodwill and trademarks of the E. Howard Watch Company.

Interestingly, Howard never made a regular production "wristwatch" so it is a double oddity that Hamilton would do just that, make a "Hamilton/Howard" wristwatch. Although never active in the manufacture of "Howard" watches, Hamilton did produce a very small quantity under the "Howard" brand name and conducted tests in the market for this once famous timepiece.

Apparently, the test results did not weather well as Howard wristwatches were never placed in full production. This rare Howard wristwatch pictured above, was the first in a series of Howard wristwatches made by Hamilton in an effort to protect Hamilton's trademark rights to the "Howard Watch Company" name. These wristwatches were distributed by select wholesalers to jewelers. Once supplies were exhausted, no other Howard examples were made with the exception of one other 14K solid gold example which was cased in a Hamilton Pierre case in 1942 and finally, an example which was sold in a 14K gold-filled Hamilton Stanford case in 1946.

This particular example which utilized the 1935 14K yellow gold Seneca case (made by Wadsworth), used a redesigned Hamilton 980 17-jewel movement which was renamed H980 ("H" for "Howard"). The movement is identical to the Hamilton 980 series with the exception of the damaskeening on the base plates and circular damaskeening on the crown and barrel wheel.

Hamilton/Howard wristwatches are very rare. Early Hamilton collectors thought of these watches as "franken-watches" (watches pieced together from different watches) and of the several hundred that were made in total, many were likely cannibalized or disassembled for parts.

:D

Interesting read.....