Hamilton 1932 – Even Management Failed to See the Economic Devastation

You might find some irony in the advertisement to your right. Hamilton had a rough 1932. They had to close down the $5 million Illinois Watch Company and move the assets to Lancaster, PA. Hamilton purchased the Company in 1928 and continued operating it until 1932. The folks in Lancaster were not hiring graduates or anyone else for that matter. They were laying people off.

Watch sales in the U.S. went from over five million to around $800,000 per year during the Great Depression. Hamilton was not immune from the downturn. They even lowered the retail prices of their watches to accommodate the times.

The advertising copy reads:

A group of men who had finished school in the panic year of 1907 met at a class reunion in the boom year of 1929. They were all men whose names make front-page news. 

One thought kept recurring in their conversation. They were eternally thankful that they had graduated in a year when jobs were few and dollars tight. They pitied the fellows who missed the moulding lessons of their early struggles by graduating into a too soft and ready world! 

So be not over-distressed. Be rather relieved that the 1932 graduate hits life exactly when he does. 

And then give him or her this solid bit of encouragement. Give a Hamilton. 

The prices of Hamiltons have been reduced to meet 1932 requirements. It is one bit of honest value in these years when so few things seem to stay put. And there are cold hard business men who even claim that unerring accuracy of a Hamilton will lend something of its regularity to the mind and habits of its wearer.


Watches pictured:

Left:

Elvinar 992 Railroad Model Number 7
Webster
Perry

Right:

Piping Rock
Mt. Vernon
Chevy Chase A
Virginia
Rondeau
Edgewood

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