1940 Touraine - Overhaul

1940 was an interesting year in Hamilton's history.  It introduced several new models that were only produced for one year.  It also introduced the "new" 19 jewel 982M Medallion movement that would be used going forward for all solid gold models with 14/0 movements.

A great example of the 1940 "uniqueness" is the Hamilton Touraine.  It's a very uncommon watch for sure and was only made for one year.

The Touraine came in a solid 14K yellow gold case.  The two-tone sterling silver dial was accented with solid gold markers and black enamel numbers.  The hands were black to match the enamel and are "alpha" style.

And of course, being solid gold, the Touraine came with the 19 jewel 982M movement.

I recently overhauled a Touraine for a friend.  I had never seen one before so it was a real treat to get my hands on it... a little nerve wracking too though - as I didn't want to mess up his Medallion movement.

As received the watch was in pretty good shape overall but the crystal was pretty beat up.  The hands are a little rusty too - not much I can do about that though - although they can be restored.

The Medallion movement is pretty easy to identify... see the big gold medallion?  The lettering is also gild so it's a little hard to make out what it all says.  The serial number on this movement is M3578... so it was the 3578th movement Hamilton made in the 982M model line, confirming this is a 1940 movement.

The dial is an older refinish and it looks okay, certainly not bad enough to warrant redoing.  You can tell it's a refinish based on the printing but the little notch on the right side is a tell too.

Flipping the dial over, you can see a couple of sets of figures scratched into the back... so this dial has seen a refinisher a couple of times in the past 70 years.

The NOS glass crystal is pretty uniquely shaped.  I had to work it with 600 grit sandpaper for about 30 minutes to get it to fit just right in the freshly polished case.  You don't want to be too rough with installing glass crystals - as they crack easily.  You have to shape them so they fit easily in the bezel opening.

The cleaning and reassembly of the watch went smoothly and it felt good to redeem myself after my Sea-Scape debacle the other evening.  As you can see in the watch timer shot below, this watch is running just fine.  I adjusted it to run about 14 seconds fast per day, it will slow slightly as the mainspring unwinds.  It has a nice white-alloy mainspring too, so there's plenty of amplitude (energy).   The beat error is very low too, at 0.2ms.  The beat error indicates how far the balance swings to one side versus to the other side.  A beat error of zero would mean it swings equally in both directions.

And here it is all polished up and running like it should.   With a new crystal you can see that the dial doesn't look perfect but it's still not too bad.  Looks like a very nice 73 year old watch to me.  I'm sure my friend will be delighted with it.

1959 Sea-Scape

There must be at least 20 Hamilton watches named Sea-something and they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes and some even electric models.  You could put together quite a nice watch collection just by collecting the various different Sea-somethings with all the varieties of dial colors as well.

If you wanted to get started you could try the 1959 Sea Scape.  Just getting started with this model would require getting the black and the white dialed versions.  The Sea-Scape was produced for three years.  There's also a Sea Scape II and a Sea Scape III to keep you on the hunt.

The Sea-Scape came in a 10K rolled gold plate case.  RGP cases don't have as much gold as gold filled and the RGP cases generally were used on the lower-tier of the Hamilton line up.

In order to keep a lower price point, the Sea Scape also uses a Swiss-made Hamilton 671 movement.  This 17 jewel sweep second movement was made by ETA and is also known as the ETA 1080 - which is helpful to know if you need a part for it.

I recently acquired a Sea-Scape project watch.  I'd show you the overhaul but I'm a little embarrassed to say that I couldn't get it to run right.  Yup that's right - sometimes a watch gets the best of me and this one really put me through the ringer.

Here's a shot of the Sea-Scape as received.  It was very "gunky" with a lot of crud in the nooks and crannies.

Here's a shot of the Hamilton 671 movement.  I completely disassembled it, cleaned it and oiled it but the hairspring is a little off center so it runs too fast.

After fighting the darned thing for a few hours I threw in the towel.  It had beaten me.  I put it all back together and took an "after" photo so you'd see what it would look like all cleaned up with a fresh crystal.

So what am I going to do now?  Well, hairsprings are tricky business.  If you think reassembling a watch is intimidating, then reshaping hairsprings should be nothing short of magical.  I'm just a hobbyist and I wouldn't dare call myself a watchmaker because watchmakers know how to work hairspring magic - and I don't.

That means I have two options... find a donor movement or send this to a watchmaker.   That's a pretty tough call because both are good options.  But in this case, I think I will go with the latter - as I have about 10 movements in similar a situation (running but poorly) and it would be good to get them all back in proper running order.

1920 17 jewel 974 Pocket Watch

Hamilton made a variety of pocket watch movements after the turn of the last century.  Sizes ranged from ladies 0-sizes up through 18-size, Hamilton's largest movements.  18 size movements eventually gave way to slightly smaller 16 size movements and one of the lower priced 17 jewel 16 size movements is the 974.

The 974 went in to "open faced" pocket watches while the 975 went into "hunter cased" watches.  A hunter cased movement will have the seconds at a 3:00 position relative to the stem.  It's sometimes called a "side winder" as the dial is rotated 90 degrees to keep the seconds at 6 position.

974 movements can be stem set or lever set.  The latter would have a small lever at about the 2 position that you would pull out in order to set the time.  A stem set, or pendant set, movement has springs inside that push the keyless works into the time setting position when you pull the stem out

Here's a nice example of a 974 pocket watch with a serial number dating to about 1920.  It looks quite similar to the catalog image, except the dial doesn't have the 5 - 60 outer register.  It's a very nice looking watch and is a nice size too, measuring in at almost 50mm in diameter.

The 974 is a typical-looking 3/4 plate movement.  The regulator also has a micro regulator to move adjust the timing by means of turning a screw.  This allows for very precise regulating of the hairspring.

It's not uncommon to find some means of personalization engraved on the case back.  This watch also has a date engraved inside the case back.  I'm sure this was a treasured watch for someone.  The case is in excellent shape.  The only gold loss is on the bow, where I presume a chain wore against it for decades.