Hamilton Thin o Matic Caliber 626

[Levine98]

Father-in-laws watch given to him by his grandmother in 1960 at Christmas.

It has sat in a drawer for probably 40 years (or longer, maybe since the quartz crisis). My father-in-law is a very practical man, being a trained engineer, metallurgist and physicist, so once cheap quartz watches came out I doubt he ever gave this watch a second look.

He is now 90 and in great physical shape, however he is suffering from memory loss and other stroke related issues. My wife and her sister wanted to get this cleaned up and in working order while he can still appreciate it.

As some forum members know from helping me out, this watch came to me with the autowind mechanism missing (likely removed by the last watchmaker who serviced the watch), forcing me to purchase two salvage movements on eBay to ensure I had all the parts to complete the project (and to use as a model movement before I mucked around with my father-in-laws watch).

Overall nice result, although I couldn’t do much about the staining on the edge of the dial (my wife wanted me to keep it as original as possible vs looking for a cleaner dial).

cheers.