Link to Lindell collection
Hampden Ball
Ball's Standard, Cleveland,Ohio # 761845
Recently acquired #410538 marked Ball's Standard Hi Grade. it has a Moorehouse Style dial and 15 jewels. This is the earliest known Ball marked Hampden other than the Whitcomb Ball in the NAWCC museum
Of the32 known surviving open face Hampden Ball's, only 3 are know to be marked Ball's standard, Cleveland ohio
The most common marking is the Ball's Standard, Superio Grade of which 24 are known.
Only three are known to be marked as Ball's STandard, High Grade.
#761624 has not been fully reported and the movemnt markings are unknown
What makes the Ball and Co Hamiltons attractive to me besides their rarity is that they are not subject to as much case swapping as seen in the later models. They are not found in Ball Marked cases. If the style is right and there are only one set of screw marks, you can have a high degree of confidence in correctness or originality. The dials are somewhat easier to spot when they have been switched also.
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Bill Kapp's collection
Pictured below:
Ball's Standard Superior Grade Hamilton/Ball 936 Serial # 8629
Production believed to be 87 with only 8 known to survive
Pictured below:
Ball & Co ORRS serial # 8774 from the first Run of ORRS. Only 3 known to survive marked Ball & Co. The other survivors of this run are Private Label Ball Jewelers.
Pictured Below:
Railroad Watch Co serial #20969. A single run of 200 with 13 surfacing to date.
16 Jewel, Single Roller Model 999F
Pictured Below,
Private label movement 13266 , C.C. Fried, 2nd run ORRS, one of only 41 known surviving Private label movements. Unfortunately it is missing its matching dial. At least 8 of the survivors share this fate.
Pictured Below, Ball and Co ORRS from second Run of 400 serial # 13312. This run is about evenly split between private labels, Brotherhood watches and Ball Marked Movement and dials. Note the A on Cleveland. Only occurs in this run. 10 known ORRS survive from this run.
Pictured below is Ball & Co ORRS serial # 14779. 3rd run 0f 1000. Run is split evenly between brotherhoods, Ball & Co Movement/dials and Private Labels. 21 known ORRS survive from this run.
Pictured below is #28205. It too is missing its dial. It should be like the dial found in the 14K run. Of the 36 known surviving examples in this run of 1000, only 10 are marked Ball & Co. The rest are brotherhoods and PL's.
Pictured below is # 42880, of the 40 known survivors in this run of 1000, only 8 have been identified as Ball & Co marked movements and dials. The rest are brotherhoods and PL's. The dial on this watch is correct. Wavy three 's have been seen on only two early BlF's in this run. Later BLF's have the straight 3. One could speculate that Ball used up his supply of earlier BLF dials before using the more modern flat 3 style. This explanation is more acceptable to me than the reverse. One would not validate a flat 3 in the 28k run!
I don't have any examples in the 90K run, its a mixed bag, everything from commercial standards, RRWCO's, Brotherhoods and Ball and Co. It is also the only early run that I know of where you will find double sunk dials.
Pictured below is # 1187 08. I only have 16 ORRS in my data base, but until recently I was only keeping track of watches seen below 100K. About half of the watches in my sample are brotherhoods. There are some more Ball & Co's in the 170K run and I believe that is the last run of Hamiltons that they will be found.
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