Here we have a nice Hudson Maxim model gent's pocket watch, given by the Kingston Police School's class of 1930 to one of their instructors, a certain Sergeant Charles Phinney. Mr Phinney would later become the Chief of Police in the town of Kingston, Ontario.
I'm still trying to suss the movt ebauche, but it is a high quality, 17 jewel example, with jewels in chatons, and Breguet Overcoil. It has its original case, and was discovered far afield in the State of Texas, in Houston.
Pictures taken and used here by kind permission of the owner.
No date code, just the serial numbers. I am not the owner, and the watch has now been sold, but the previous owner was kind enough to send all the pertinent information and pictures for us to use here for the purposes of identification. It is certainly possible that the watch predates the presentation date.
I have three "similar" watches....a couple with Hudson Maxim on dial. The green presentation box....now that's really cool. Wonder if there is any Bulova sig somewhere on the green box? I think all three of mine have the Breguet Overcoil. I bought them in a flurry, took a couple pictures, and have placed them in a drawer somewhere...... I gotta either take pics and load on site....or sell them to someone who is more obsessed then I...and less lazy. Subject watch gotta be earlier than the dedication. Rev Rob, I bet this is where you wish you had the keyless sig side picture.....
In reply to I have three "similar" by William Smith
We are fairly certain at this point the Bulova W. Co signature on the Movement predates 1924 and I've recently viewed a very similar box which would also do the same, pre date '24.
The Hands on this rascal are also familiar, and early 1920's. They can be seen here http://www.mybulova.com/watches/1923-8-days-2440 on this Bulova 8 Day which We have pegged currently at 1923, the Date of manufacture of which may or may not be 100% correct, in hindsight 1924, maybe.
Add the attribute of a Movement without a Datecode to the puzzle of this 'HUDSON MAXIM' and 1923 possibly before becomes more probable. There is more than likely a clear indicator of Date of manufacture for these early Bulovas', to Date We have yet to realize it.
1923'ish
As near as I can determine, the 17AA, and its predecessor, the 17AN, along with the 17A, 17R, 17TR, 17AB, 17H and 17V, are all in house Bulova movts, made in Switzerland. There is no evidence that I can find of them being an adapted ebauche, and would mean Bulova was executing them in their entirety. This is fairly unusual for the time in the young company's history, and predates the later in house movts and American made movts. I wish we knew more about the setup and running of the Bulova Swiss factory, it may be that Bulova acquired some defunct tooling to allow the easy adoption of these larger movts, made in house.
There are no other marks on the box. I believe what we have here is an earlier watch, presented in 1930. I have adjusted the date to reflect this, and we may find that even that is off by a few years.
I stretched that dial pick as every which way, trying to see if it has the small script Hudson Maxim on the dial. It didn't work. I can't tell if Hudson Maxim is on subject dial.
I'll send ya some pics of my similar case markings/movement. Mine has similar SN's to case..mine with the American Standard shield vs the subject watch globe. My movement doesn't have a movement model on bridge, but sure looks like subject movement.
or I'l get industrious and list mine as a pending unknown....:) (EDIT) My similar example below:
Subject watch Movement Serial No.: 1210451 located beneath balance. My example below has two SN's: the one beneath the balance on the plate is 1219087. On bridge at bottom of photo, I have SN 123092
Subject watch case SN:1076572 My similar case below case SN: 1098712