Long before the first production 500 electric movement appeared, Hamilton had developed various prototype movements during the early 1950s. Some were based around electro-magnets (EM-1) while others had permanent magnets (PM-1); both designs had their followers, but in the end, the permanent magnet design won on electrical efficiency grounds, and PM-1 became the ancestor of all production Hamilton Electric movements (500, 500A and 505).

There were many problems with PM-1, so further prototypes were developed to refine the design; Model 1 went through Mark 1, Mark 2 and Mark 3, but in 1953, the research group produced the Model 2. This was a major re-design and was much closer to the final production 500 movement.

The Model 2 was a "wear test" model; initially there were plans for 25 but ultimately, only 23 were made. They were cased and given to senior Hamilton Executives to wear on their wrists for a period of time. This movement differs from the production 500 is several ways: it uses an epoxy resin balance, has large flat magnets and a primitive contact system.

The Model 2 movements generally performed quite well although the contacts were temperamental and the epoxy resin balance were susceptible to changing humidity. For a full description of Hamilton's early work on the development of the world's first electric watch, I suggest you get hold of a copy of René Rondeau's book "The Watch of the Future" --- details are on my Books page.

A fellow UK Hamilton Electric enthusiast, Dan Mitchell, kindly gave me one of these extremely rare and unique Model 2 prototypes! It is Serial Number 19 (the example shown in "The Watch of the Future" is Serial Number 17). The following photographs are of my Hamilton Model 2 Serial Number 19 ( out of a possible 23).

Many thanks Dan, for passing this wonderful piece of Hamilton electric watch history on to me.