Description

21 jewel, gold-filled, open face, #2,571,252, circa 1934, working...The Hamilton Watch Company was established in 1892 when the Keystone Standard Watch Company was forced into bankruptcy and sold at a sheriff's sale to a group of Lancaster, Pennsylvania entrepreneurs whose "objective was to build only watches of the highest quality." During this same year, a merger took place between the newly established Lancaster based watchmaking concern and the Aurora Watch Company of Illinois. A decision was made to name the new company after James Hamilton, owner of a large tract of land which was granted to him from William Penn and included what is now the city of Lancaster. The new company would be known as The Hamilton Watch Company.[1] Hamilton Watch Company was housed on a 13-acre (53,000 m2) complex in Lancaster. Hamilton eventually took possession of Aurora Watch Company's machinery shortly after incorporation. With quality being Hamilton's primary goal, the company set out to manufacture "America’s Finest Watch." The first watch made under the Hamilton name was an 18-size 17-jewel pocket watch in 1893. Within the next six years, Hamilton had developed a reputation for creating pocket watches of the highest caliber of quality. During Hamilton's first fifteen years, only two size movements were produced — the 18-size and the smaller 16-size.[1] Its first series of pocket watches, the Broadway Limited, was known as the "Watch of Railroad Accuracy," and Hamilton became popular by making accurate railroad watches