The Hamilton 986 Movement Story – “The Real Low-Down”

986A Hamilton Movement

Hamilton originally produced the 986 and 986A for pendant  watches – a style of pocket watch with the winding staff at the top of the timepiece. Railroad watch standards required  the winding stem to rest at the 12 o’clock position to protect the setting.

The 986 like the 987  had a 6/0 size 17 jewel movement. Hamilton produced approximately 90,000 watches  using 986/986A movements. Hamilton deployed the movement from 1922 to 1926. Prior to 1927, the Company cased it as a wristwatch.

Oh, by-the-way, this is one of my favorite movements, but that’s beside the point.

You’ll notice that all of the ladies watches with the 986 movement have only two hands – the hour and minutes. You might ask why the second hand is missing. The pivot for the second hand is under the dial.

Here’s where I get a little technical. The fourth wheel (think of an automobile) runs 360 degrees within a minute. The wheel is there, the pivot is there, but Hamilton didn’t provide a sub-second hand assembly for the 986.

Below, we placed photo images of  two strap watches with the second hand at the nine o’clock position. On the right is an image of a Hamilton Cushion. It’s doubt Hamilton produced this case and dial. It’s undocumented if they did. More likely, a jeweler provided the dial.

Another possibility exists. A restorer could have used an Illinois dial and had a refinisher use the Hamilton logo on the face.  The watch on the right uses a variation of a 1920’s Illinois dial. Take that into consideration please. The Illinois is on the left hand side of your screen in it’s original condition.

Hamilton

Ladies Strap Watch

Many people believe Hamilton and Illinois designed these watches with the second hand at the nine o’clock position to achieve an Art Deco effect. Aside from the fact that the Art Deco period had not started by then,  people did not consider these two watches aesthetically pleasing. They may look that way to us, but what do we know? As the wristwatch gained in popularity, manufacturers produced dials to accommodate the available movements they had in stock. Moving the crown from the 12 o’clock position to the 3 o’clock position meant the second hand had to go on the left side of the dial instead of the bottom.

Illinois

Eventually, watch manufacturers produced movements for standard strap watches. Illinois Watch Company, however, continued using pendant style movements into the 1930’s.