Post by cmaster03 on Sept 17, 2013 21:24:58 GMT -6
Not sure if this is the right board or not, but had to share my new treasure.
I have been wanting one of these forever. This is a WWII-era deck watch (used as ship's chronometer on some smaller vessels, and as a companion to the regular chronometer on larger vessels). The ship's chronometers would stay safely put below decks, but the deck watches cold be taken topside or to the bridge for navigation, etc. They made these in both gimballed and non-gimballed versions. I really like these non-gimballed models as they are just giant pocket watches! In fact they have a lever escapement as opposed to the more delicate detent escapement of the big Hamilton Model 21 chronometers.
My particular Model 22 is a very late one, and according to Hamilton records was finished after the war and sold to Northwest Instrument Co. of Seattle on 11-29-1946. It's 35 size (I'll post a photo of it with a 1675 GMT for comparison) and has been running great since I go it yesterday. It has a neat "safety" feature of a pin that has to be pushed in to set the hands. This prevents inadvertently changing the time while winding the watch. A 60-hour mainspring (with nifty up/down wind indicator) helped insure excellent accuracy-- that and an elinvar hairspring and superior manufacturing methods. Mine has only lost two seconds in the first 30 hours... and that is after the mailman dropped the box on the ground getting out of his truck to hand it to me. (Yes, I was waiting for the mail.) I think it might even do a little better after settling down. (It just had a service.)
I have been wanting one of these forever. This is a WWII-era deck watch (used as ship's chronometer on some smaller vessels, and as a companion to the regular chronometer on larger vessels). The ship's chronometers would stay safely put below decks, but the deck watches cold be taken topside or to the bridge for navigation, etc. They made these in both gimballed and non-gimballed versions. I really like these non-gimballed models as they are just giant pocket watches! In fact they have a lever escapement as opposed to the more delicate detent escapement of the big Hamilton Model 21 chronometers.
My particular Model 22 is a very late one, and according to Hamilton records was finished after the war and sold to Northwest Instrument Co. of Seattle on 11-29-1946. It's 35 size (I'll post a photo of it with a 1675 GMT for comparison) and has been running great since I go it yesterday. It has a neat "safety" feature of a pin that has to be pushed in to set the hands. This prevents inadvertently changing the time while winding the watch. A 60-hour mainspring (with nifty up/down wind indicator) helped insure excellent accuracy-- that and an elinvar hairspring and superior manufacturing methods. Mine has only lost two seconds in the first 30 hours... and that is after the mailman dropped the box on the ground getting out of his truck to hand it to me. (Yes, I was waiting for the mail.) I think it might even do a little better after settling down. (It just had a service.)
