It's a nice watch, probably about the best of the best for mass production pocket watches. It is, however a mass production watch, and there are tens of thousands of them still in existence. They were built for a goodly portion of the 20th century... production stopped in the 1960's.
It is one of the most popular watches among the casual railroad watch collector. As a result they are priced very high, and they have virtually all been subject to having major pieces replaced with replicas... the dial being the most popular item to replace. The Montgomery dial is one of the most popular among the RR watch crowd, so today there are probably more Hamilton 992B's with Montgomery dials than were ever made by a large margin. It is very rare to find a 992B that has all of its original parts, and comes in its original case. Most American pocket watches came from the factory uncased, and the jeweler was expected to case them. Since the railroad employee was required to purchase his own watch, most came in very inexpensive utilitarian cases... it is rare to find one in a fine case... so as a result many fine watches were divested from their fine cases by RR watch dealers in order to make something that never was. OBTW, "lever set" means that you have to unscrew the front bezel to set the watch. There is a lever under the edge of the front bezel that puts the watch in setting mode. Many 992B's are damaged by uninformed owners that try to pull the stem out (successfully) while trying to set the watch. The railroad owner of the watch never set the watch. He brought it to a dispatcher who set it to railroad time, and screwed the bezel back onto the watch. RR watches were a safety mechanism, as there was no other way to schedule trains going in opposite directions on the same track. Forbidding the RR employee from setting the watch hopefully prevented train crashes. -Chuck Harris John Green wrote:
I know there are those who have a lot of knowledge about pocket watches and railroad watches so, I know someone with a 992B Hamilton Railroad Special, 21 jewel, lever set, with a Montgomery dial. He seems to think this is a special watch. Is it? _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
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