![seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup](https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/assets/dropbox/watch/large/30f5dd717de2b4d82578ae9559177687.jpg)
About 12% of the 59 Benson "Bank" watches I have seen have this numbering system but the percentage would be somewhat higher if only watches after 1900 were considered.
![seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup](https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/assets/dropbox/watch/large/f0fd9a229be0054825e7d097ae2bb965.jpg)
Some Benson "Bank" movements and its derivatives after c 1901 have a serial number prefixed with a letter. Noire, which takes place in post-World War II Los Angeles.The case has the same numeric serial number as the movement so the date is pretty certain.
![seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup](https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/assets/dropbox/watch/large/1f5a3c23ae7410431628e7bc954aec60.jpeg)
After a year of designing and building the lathes and machines to achieve seemingly impossible levels of precision, a team of watchmakers and mechanical engineers produced their first pocket watch movement, named for mayor “B.W. Raymond, purchased an abandoned farm 30 miles north of Chicago and built a watch factory there. Harper’s magazine summed their sentiment perfectly: “It was the genuine, audacious, self-reliant Western spirit.” By August of that year this consortium, including then-Chicago mayor Benjamin W.
![seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup seth thomas pocket watch serial number lookup](https://fws-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/website/auctions/items/full/4011845_5.jpg)
In the spring of 1864 half a dozen ambitious Chicago businessmen decided that if Massachusetts could build a factory that built watches – Illinois could, too.