_____________________________
Production
Date: 1942 est.
Price When New: $71.50
Case: 14K Yellow Gold
Case Manufacturer: Wadsworth (Cased in a Hamilton
"Seneca" Case)
Production for this Variation: Unknown
Movement: H980 - 17-Jewel Howard Movement modeled after
the Hamilton 17-jewel
980 movement
___________________________
Comments:
Hamilton purchased the goodwill and trademarks of the E.
Howard Watch Company in 1931, three years after the purchase of the
Illinois Watch Company in 1928. Although never active in the
manufacture of "Howard" watches, Hamilton did produce a very small
quantity under the "Howard" brand name and conducted tests in the
market for this once famous timepiece.
Apparently, the test results did not
weather well as Howard wristwatches were never placed in full
production. This rare Howard wristwatch was the first Howard
series
made by Hamilton in an effort to protect Hamilton's trademark rights
to the "Howard Watch Company" name. These wristwatches were
distributed by select wholesalers to jewelers.
Once supplies were exhausted, no other Howard examples were made
with the exception of 51 14K solid gold examples which were cased in
Hamilton's Pierre cases in
1942 and
1,021 examples which were sold in
Hamilton Stanford
cases in 1946.
This particular example used a
redesigned Hamilton 980 17-jewel movement which was renamed H 980 ("H" for
"Howard" wristwatch). The movement is identical to the
Hamilton 980 series with the exception of damaskeening on the base plates and
circular damaskeening on the crown and barrel wheel.
