Illinois Railroad Grade Bunn Special Type III Faced with the Desired Montgomery Dial (1929)

The combination on this example is what the collectors chase: a 60-hour Bunn Special Model 14 movement, a double-sunk Montgomery dial with blued-steel diamond hands, and a 10k gold-filled Bunn Special Model 181 case — all of it Illinois-made in Springfield in 1929, the year Hamilton had just absorbed the company and the Model 14 was in its prime. Twenty-one jewels, open face, lever set, adjusted to temperature, isochronism, and six positions. This is the Illinois answer to Hamilton's 992 and Waltham's Vanguard, dressed the way railroad men actually wanted to see it.

The case is a Bunn Special Model 181 in 10k gold fill — one of the Illinois-signed cases sold as a matched pair with the movement, plain-polished and railroad-clean, with a screw-on back and bezel that seal the movement against dust. Gold-filled construction bonds a heavy sheet of solid gold to a base-metal core, and 10k Bunn Special cases from this era routinely survive a century with their color intact. This one has.

The nickel plates carry the ray pattern damascening — the fourth of the Illinois damascene patterns catalogued by renowned watch historian William "Bill" Meggers, radiating lines that catch light differently at every angle. Twenty-one jewels sit in the 3/4-plate layout, and the movement runs off the Type III 60-hour motor barrel that defined the Model 14: a longer, stronger mainspring in a rigid barrel that gave the watch two and a half days between winds instead of the usual day and a half.

The Montgomery dial is the one railroaders and collectors both want on a 60-hour Bunn Special. Designed by Santa Fe general watch inspector Henry S. Montgomery, it prints every one of the sixty minutes as a numeral around the outer track, so a conductor reading time to the second never has to count marks — the number is already there. Pair it with the blued-steel diamond hands and the double-sunk enamel surface, and you get a face that reads instantly in low light and holds its own against any American railroad dial ever made.

By 1929 Illinois had been building Bunn-line movements in Springfield for over fifty years, and the Bunn Special sat at the top of its railroad catalog. Hamilton had bought the company in 1928, but Springfield production continued under the old name and the Model 14 with its 60-hour motor barrel remained the flagship. It was a hinge year in America: Herbert Hoover took office in March, the first Academy Awards were handed out that spring, and the decade ended in October when the market collapsed on Black Tuesday. This movement was finished and cased before any of it went wrong.

Excellent throughout — case, dial, hands, and movement all present as a clean, honest survivor of a watch that has kept time for nearly a century. On a chain in a vest pocket it carries the weight of the American rail era; under glass on a stand it reads as an artifact of the last full year of the Roaring Twenties. It stands as a remarkable testament to American watchmaking, designed to serve generations with enduring reliability.

All vintage pocket watches are cleaned, oiled and adjusted for accuracy and warranted for one full year from the date of purchase.