The Unique and Much Traveled Hamilton #500
Hamilton number 500 was produced as a Grade 936 on March 1, 1894 and sold on March 24th to J. W. Forsinger of Chicago. It was one of a large group of 936 grades that was remarked by adding 30,000 to the serial number. This was presumably to disguise the fact that they were old stock at the time they were sold. This information is from Book 1 of the Hamilton ledgers. Book1 is actually a re-used Aurora book with the blank pages subsequently used by Hamilton.
The number 30,500 shows up again in Book 3 of the ledgers as the only entry in a large section of the ledger that would have had the 30,000 range of watches in it if the numbers had not already been used. In this second entry the watch is shown as shipping to E. L. Tobie of Keithsburg, Ill on May 14th, 1898 but the entry is struck through to indicate that Tobie returned the watch to Hamilton.
A second notation on the same line indicates that the watch was sold November 19th, 1902 to W. W. Packard. It is interesting to speculate if this was a mis-entry and the watch was actually sold to J. W. Packard, the famous collector of complicated watches.
In all the entries regarding the watch there is the notation that the watch has 25 jewels. Indeed the watch, which was recently donated to the NAWCC Museum has 25 jewels and is the only known example of a “high jewel” Hamilton.
