75 year old advice

[Alcan]

This was taken verbatim from a 1931 Hamilton Watch Company watch care brochure:

The Care of Your Watch – Hamilton Watch Company,
Lancaster Pennsylvania - 1931

It has been calculated that a locomotive would make almost twenty-eight complete circuits of the earth if it were started running on the equator and run until its wheels had performed the same number of revolutions that the balance wheel of a watch makes in a year. Can you imagine a locomotive doing this continuous running without frequent examination, cleaning, and oiling?

The best place to carry your pocket watch is in your vest pocket with the crystal toward your body. Various types of chains may be used, but whatever type of chain or fob you prefer to wear, the main point to consider is that the watch itself is carried in the pocket where the watch will not be knocked every time you move.

Keep your watch pocket free from dust and lint. By doing so you eliminate the possibility of dust and lint working their way through the watch case into the movement. The wrist watch, as the name implies, belongs on the wrist and performs best when worn at all times, except when one is bathing or washing. The heat of the body and the personal habits of the wearer help maintain a constant rate of time telling.

Avoid opening the back of a watch case. If it must be done, do it in a place where foreign particles and moisture cannot settle on the mechanism. Wind your watch every twenty-four hours. While it is true that Hamilton watches will run more than twenty-four hours at a winding, it is best to wind any watch once every day, preferably at the same time in the morning, in order to give your watch full spring power during your most active hours. In setting your watch, simply turn the hands in the nearest direction toward the correct time. There is no danger of injury to the movement in rotating the hands either forward or backward.

At night your pocket watch is best kept in your vest pocket. Do not place it under your pillow or in other places where it is liable to be jarred to the floor or subjected to varying degrees of temperature. If it is inconvenient to keep it in your vest pocket, place it in a position where it is not liable to fall and where it will not be near open windows or hot radiators.

[mike]

Wonderfull information Al!

Indeed these watches and the men that used them were/are a special breed the likes of which we may never see again. These may have been the first real tool watches as so much depended on the time keeping of these wonderfull pieces.
Strong solid watches that played a vital part in insuring everything ran on time, these watches were capable of timekeeping that would make the modern chronometer blush. Railroad watches were inspected by the company regularly and the necessary adjustments made.
Maintenance logs were kept and presented to the company watchmaker who noted the work.
I agree about opening the watch, but boy, one could watch that movement for hours!!

[timebroker]

Those american railroad watches are still excellent time keepers if handled correctly over the years.