Dueber Case Serial Number
Dueber Watch Case Serial Numbers
Dueber Coin Case Serial Numbers
Dueber Watch Case Serial Number

The Hampden Watch Co. Manufactured watches in Springfield, Massachesetts and Canton, Ohio from approximately 1877 to 1927. See more information about Hampden or find out more information about your watch by conducting a serial number lookup. It has matching numbers on the case.668737. The movement has the number 180000. On the back inside cover above the case number 668737 is a small number 3. It has DUEBER COIN printed on the inside back cover. It also has a round paper advertising label on the inside of the back cover explaining that it is ' THE DUEBER WATCH CASE MANUFACTURING CO.

The Dueber Watch Case Company was an important employer in Canton, Ohio during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. In 1864, John Dueber founded the Dueber Watch Case Company in Newport, Kentucky. This firm manufactured cases that held the internal workings of watches.
Title: Price List of Gold Watch Cases Author: The Dueber Watch Case Manufacturing Co. (Canton, Ohio) Date: late 19th–early 20th century Medium: Illustrations: wood engraving or photo engraving Dimensions: 9 3/8 x 6 in. (23.8 x 15.2 cm) Classification: Books Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1954 Accession Number: 54.511.6(2).

Contents
“Foreign” Hallmarks
British Import Hallmarks
British Traditional Hallmarks
Sponsor's Marks
Swiss Hallmarks
Swiss Poinçons de Maître
The Great War and Gold Cases
Imitation or Fake Hallmarks
Priestley's 'Watch Case Makers'
American Hallmarks?
German Hallmarks
• Pforzheim
French Swan and Owl
Russian Hallmarks
Polish Hallmarks
British Sponsor but No Hallmarks?
Cautions about Hallmark Tables

This page is principally about hallmarking. A hallmark is a legally mandated mark applied by an independent testing authority that shows the fineness of precious metal; gold, silver or platinum. Not all marks on watch cases are hallmarks! For instance, a mark could be a be manufacturer's trademark, and there are is no such thing as an American hallmark.

Precious metal (gold and silver, and more recently platinum) objects have by law been tested and marked in England since at least the year 1300, and since 1478 had to be taken to Goldsmiths' Hall in London, from which the term “hallmarking” originate. Other assay offices were later opened in centres where goldsmiths worked. The fineness of the metal is tested to make sure it meets legal requirements, and then it can be stamped with a hallmark. In addition to the fineness, hallmarks show where and when an item was hallmarked, and under whose name it was submitted.

This page helps you to make a start on reading the hallmarks in your watch case by identifying in which country it was assayed and hallmarked. You are then directed to another page with more detailed information.

If you want to get a book about British hallmarking, Bradbury's Book of Hallmarks published by the Sheffield Assay Office is a long established reference. Make sure that you get a 2014 or later edition, because only those contain correct information about British import hallmarks applied to watch cases.

Be aware that most published tables of British hallmark date letters are only for British made sterling silver items. Different date letter punch shapes were often used on items made from gold, and after 1907 sometimes on imported gold and silver items. see Cautions about Hallmark Tables.

There is a lot of information on this page and I know it can be difficult to take it all in; if you are struggling to understand the hallmarks in your watch case please ask me for help via my contact me page.

I don't make any attempt here to cover manufacturer's trademarks. If you want to identify a trademark, an invaluable resource is Mikrolisk.

Background to Hallmarks and Case Marks

The testing (assay) and hallmarking of gold and silver items in Britain goes back to the year 1300. At first the wardens of the Goldsmiths' company would visit guild members workshops and stamp their work with the mark of the leopard's head. In 1478 the first permanent assayer was appointed and items had to be taken to Goldsmiths' Hall to be assayed and marked, the origin of the term 'hallmarking'. A system of variable letters, changed each year when new wardens were elected, was introduced to identify when, and therefore by whom, an item had been assayed. At first this was called the 'assayer's mark' but is now commonly known as the date letter.

Because the date letter punches were changed when new wardens were elected each year, which took place part way through the year, hallmark date letters span two calendar years. This is not noted in most tables of hallmarks, which only show the year when the punch was first used. Army skin gta sa. But please remember that an entry of, for example, '1914' really means 1914 to 1915.

Gold and silver watch cases submitted for hallmarking at a British assay office had first to be stamped with a mark identifying the person submitting the work, using a punch that had been previously registered at the assay office. Swiss watch cases were required to be assayed and hallmarked from 1880 but the identities of Swiss watch case makers are poorly documented before 1925, after that date all Swiss gold watch cases had to be stamped with a mark that identifies the maker.

NAWCC Watch & Clock Bulletin article November/December 2014.
Click this link to DOWNLOAD D594

There has never been a system of hallmarking in America. Watch cases made in America carry marks stamped by their makers that were not legally mandated or controlled until 1906 when the National Gold and Silver Stamping Act required an accurate purity mark. These are not hallmarks; they depend to a large extent on the manufacturer's honesty. American watch cases usually carry the maker's name and trade mark. It was not until 1961 that the American government mandated that jewellery manufacturers include a mark indicating the maker. Many American watch movements were imported into Britain and cased with British made watch cases which, if they are gold or silver, carry British hallmarks.

In Britain gold or silver watch cases, wherever they were made, should always have been assayed and hallmarked in a British assay office before sale. British laws on hallmarking were enacted long before watches were even invented! Foreign made watch cases were no more exempt from the law than British made cases, but hallmarking of imported watch cases was not enforced before 1907. There was a from a short period between 1874 and 1887 when a small proportion of foreign watch cases were hallmarked in the same way as British made watch cases, but apart from this most watches were imported into Britain either without hallmarks at all, or with hallmarks from their country of origin.

For a very quick guide to reading traditional British hallmarks, go to British Hallmarks: A Quick Guide.

Hallmarks on Imported Watches

Swiss made gold and silver watch cases were not hallmarked in Switzerland until hallmarks for watch cases were introduced by Swiss law in 1880. Before that date gold cases were usually stamped with their carat fineness by the case maker, and silver was marked with its millesimal fineness, usually 800, or sometimes just 'fine silver'.

British practice changed in 1907 when it was ordered that all imported gold and silver watch cases be assayed and hallmarked in a British assay office. From 1 June 1907 the assay offices were ordered to strike hallmarks on imported watch cases that were different from those struck on watch cases made in the UK. For instance the London Assay Office town mark for watch cases manufactured in Britain was a leopard's head, but the town mark used on imported watches became the zodiac symbol Leo on a crossed back ground in an oval shield.

An easy way to distinguish a British hallmark struck on an imported watch case after 1 June 1907 is to look at the town mark, the symbol that shows which assay office carried out the assay and hallmarking. The new town marks shown below were used from 1 June 1907 on imported watch cases to distinguish them from watch cases made in Britain.

London
Zodiac sign of Leo

Birmingham
Equilateral triangle

Chester
Acorn a

Dueber Case Serial Number