Added a few more military timepieces to the collection

[river rat]

Well added a few more military timepieces to the collection. They mite be considered clocks but there cool other wise.


This early US Navy Chelsea Deck Clock from WW1 and Chelsea keeps good recorde I got a archive letter from them. My Grandfarther served in the US Navy in WW1 who knows mite of came off one of his ships. The next one I been wanting to ad one of these for years a Hamilton Model 21 ships chronometer this one was made in 1945 so proberly missed WW2 did go to a merchent ship from the service reciept. When the US got into WW2 we were getting most of our chronometers from Europe that dried up with WW2. And our Navy and Merchant Marine were starting to build a masive amount of ships each ship needed a chronometer for Navigation. So Elgin and Hamilton submited one for the contract and Hamilton won. Hamilton made in one week what the world produced in 1 years now thats a lot of chronometers. Remeber no GPS in WW2.





Well sent the movement out for a service should get it back in about 3 weeks.

[vintagehamiltons]

Nice! I really need to pull the trigger for a ship's chronometer.

[river rat]

Nice! I really need to pull the trigger for a ship's chronometer.

I thought the same way for 10 or more years some thing else I wanted more showed up and funds were gone. There was one seller at the chapter 5 NAWCC mart that all ways had a few for sell use to pick his brain for info on them when I lived in the bay area. Less timepiece hunting in MT were I live now. Saw this one with both boxes for 1700 with buy now on Ebay so pulled the trigger plus the seller knew how to pack it corking the balance wheel for shipping. So with a service another 300 in it will be what a un-serviced one goes for. They normally sell for 2000-2500. I notice less on Ebay these days all you see is the model 22's and some of those fools want the price of a model 21 I remember I paid 1200 years ago for my Model 22.

[vintagehamiltons]

Can you share where you had it serviced? PM if you don't want it on an open forum.

[river rat]

Sent you a PM of two I would trust servicing a Model 21

[vintagehamiltons]

Sent you a PM of two I would trust servicing a Model 21

Thanks much!

[river rat]

Vintagehamilton if your adding one to the collection. Do your home work on how to handle one. These are more are more delicate than most timepieces the key winds it and changes the time like a keywind pocket watch and the hands only go forward never backwards or the movement can be damaged. I read they need to be run 24\7 or it can mess up the time keeping. But I mite cork the balance and let it run down if I let mine sit for a while. If you run it 24/7 you will need to service it every 3-5 years. The detent the most expensive part of the movement and the most delicate part of the movement about 600 bucks and don't let any one who don't know how to handle one touch it. Just some pointers I am still learning.

[river rat]

Here is some thing cool. You put in your Hamilton movement serial number and you can get some info. And hit the high lighted numbers and you will see a copy of the Hamilton logs were your serial number is located if your lucky saw the date and who mine was sold to.
https://nawcc.org/index.php/research/co ... s/hamilton

[river rat]

Well the service is done one part was replaced the detent trip spring was worn down so replaced during the service. When he timed it was +0.5s over two days not bad. Also ordered a replacement leather strap for the outer box that was missing. If you notice the issue number plaque also missing on the outer box I looked inside the bottom of the inner gimble box what do I see a extra Hamilton brass plaque and a Issue number plaque so that extra plaque will go on the outer box. Should get it back next week.