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A rare American mahogany and brass-mounted Hamilton 4-orbit two-day marine chronometer

HAMILTON, LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA, NO.4E109. CIRCA 1947

Details

A rare American mahogany and brass-mounted Hamilton 4-orbit two-day marine chronometer
Hamilton, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, No.4E109. Circa 1947
BOX: three-tier with brass drop-down handles and brass corner mounts, brass gimbal and bowl with spring-loaded winding cover, brass bezel with milled rim and flat glass; also with guard box
DIAL: silvered and engraved with outer minute ring calibrated 00-55, further rings for 24-hour indication, 48-hour up/down, seconds calibrated at intervals of 10, and day of week, signed along the outer edge HAMILTON/LANCASTER,PA., U.S.A., numbered to the centre of the hour ring 4E019 and dated to the centre of the seconds ring 1947, all hands of polished steel
MOVEMENT: silvered plates decorated with parallel line finishing and joined by four screwed pillars, top plate signed MODEL 221, 14 JEWELS/HAMILTON WATCH CO./LANCASTER, PENNA/MADE IN U.S.A./4E019, bottom plate also numbered 4E019, chain and fusee with maintaining power; tipsy key
ESCAPEMENT: Earnshaw-type with uncut stainless steel balance, Invar cross-arm and Elinvar helical balance spring, spring detent with jewelled locking stone
195 mm. square box, 100 mm. diameter dial

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
Marvin E. Whitney, Military Timepieces, AWI Press, 1992, pp.171-172.
Hamilton produced only 27 4-Orbit chronometers, between May 1945 and December 1956. Known as Model 221, their serial numbers were prefixed '4E'. The Navy contracted for ten of the chronometers but World War II ended shortly after the first was produced and the contract was cancelled. Most of the chronometers were subsequently sold to Northwest Instrument Co. of Seattle.
The 4-Orbit or Individual Orbit chronometer gives separate orbits for hours, minutes, seconds, day of week and up/down indication. It was designed specifically for use in the Pacific, where crossing the International Date Line made it essential for a navigator to know the day of the week at Greenwich (the Greenwich Date), enabling him to enter the correct date in the Nautical Almanac and thereby eliminate possible errors arising from local calendar changes at the International Date Line. The day of week hand is therefore set to the Greenwich Day.
The prototype model and several of the early-numbered chronometers had '00' at the top of the dial, as on the present example.

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