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HAMILTON WATCH COMPANY The Hamilton Watch Company it thought by many to be the producer of the best American watches and was founded in 1892 by Charles D. Rood and Henry J. Cain who set the company up in Lancaster PA. The company was named after Andrew Hamilton a Scottish born immigrant who was Pennsylvania's attorney general from 1729 to 1739. Hamilton's first pocket watch, was designed in 1893. The railroads turned to Hamilton to put an end to railroad crashes. Most of the pocket watches were sold to railroad workers because of there accuracy and dependency but Hamilton could see a greater potential and went on to produce fine watches for a world wide customer base. In WW1 General Black Jack Pershing used a Hamilton watch to time movements of American troops. Hamilton's golden era was from the 1920s to the 1950s. In 1920 only 4% of the company's watches were wristwatches compared with 48% from Elgin. This means that many Hamiltons wristwatches are now quite rare and coupled with the quality of their pieces, these watches are much sought after by collectors today.
GRUEN WATCH COMPANY The Gruen Watch Company was founded in 1894 in Cincinnati. It constructed what is called the Timehill Building which featured in much of its early advertising. The company went on to open a factory in Biel Switzerland. The company's aim was to make, in Fred Gruen's words, "...useful things in a beautiful way". Gruen made stunning ladies and mens watches with very high quality movements, often using the same as those used by Rolex in the early 20th century. Fact has it that Gruen, Wilsdorf and Davis (who founded Rolex) knew each other extremely well. The Gruen Precision Building is today owned by Rolex whose main factory is near by. Gruen Very-Thin Model The Veri-Thin model was an innovative master stroke by Gruen who moved away from the main stream thinking of how a movement "should be" made and they came up with a different way of setting the wheels to make the movement thinner and in turn being able to create some streamlined cases for it to fit. Although The Gruen Curvex model is the most desirable amongst collectors due to another Gruen innovation of a curved movement, the veri-thin and precision models offer much to a collection with some very desirable models.
Gruen Curvex Models
During the mid-1930s, the fashion was for longer and more curved rectangular watches. However, the thinness and curve of the case was limited due to the fact that the only movements made were flat. As the case got thinner and more curved, the only real option was to use a smaller movement. Gruen solved this problem by building a curved movement by an ingenious arrangement of the internal wheels and bridges, this allowed them to put a bigger and more reliable movement into a thinner and more curved case than any of their competitors could. Since the design was patented, these curved movements were exclusive to Gruen. The Curvex was very successful and is one of the most sought after collectable timepieces of today.
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