VINTAGE 1953 HAMILTON “Rodney” Gold Filled
About Hamilton Watches
Today, the Hamilton Watch Company is a manufacturer of wristwatches based in Bienne , Switzerland. Founded in 1892 as an American firm, the company produced watches from their plant in Lancaster, PA, using Swiss movements. Hamilton ended American manufacture in 1969, and eventually became integrated into the Swatch Group , the world's largest watch manufacturing and marketing conglomerate.
Originally, Hamilton was known as the “railroad watch” because of its accuracy and innovation (e.g., mainsprings that did not expand and contract with temperature). The company also has a long history in the movies, being worn on screen by everyone from Marlene Dietrich and Clive Brook (The Orient Express ), to Elvis Presley, Roger Moore (James Bond), Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar ), and is an essential part of the uniform for Men in Black . Hamilton cites 500 major movie appearances.
About this watch
The Rodney was introduced in 1953 and ran through many iterations through 1964. It came in several different dial arrangements. With its clean "bubble back," it was a popular "presentation watch" and is often found with anniversary engravings from loyal employers to loyal employees. I do not know who Mr. Caldwell was. But M & R Dietetic Laboratories was the developer of Similac baby formula and nutritional supplements in the 1940s and 1950s. It was sold to Abbott labs in the mid 1960s.I buy and sell a few old watches from the mid-1930s through the mid-1960s. I like Hamiltons and the occasional Bulova. Sometimes I will venture into British watches (e.g., Ingersoll). I deal in mechanical and automatics. Like a tracker pipe organ (also an interest of mine) they are a combination of history, architecture, and machine: little artworks. I confess to owning a Citizen for work use, but I generally eschew battery powered appliances.
If the items in my collection seem similar, it is because I like aparticular style and function. I preferreal numbers on a watch face and need to tell time at a glance while speaking. I typically wear these watches for weeks, months, or years before selling them—ahh— to make sure everything works as it should. I am not just an eBay flipper. If I tell you a watch runs and keeps time: it runs and keeps time. When I make a buying mistake (oh, it happens) the watch goes to off to a professional watchmaker to be rebuilt and restored and, after my recovering some cost by wearing it, offered as such at a premium.
All the watches I sell are intended to be ready to wear and giftable.