OVERVIEW

Brothers Edward Madison Howes and Benjamin Durward Howes had a jewelry store in Clinton, Iowa in the very early 1900’s, but after the robust sawmill days of Clinton ended, the brothers closed the store. EM Howes moved on to the real estate business and became the Mayor of Clinton.

Benjamin later moved to Los Angeles and founded B.D. Howes & Son Jewelers in 1919. The company eventually grew to 10 stores in California, Arizona and Hawaii.

Howes was an authorized Patek dealer at the time and they also carried Movado, which used the same Borgel cases as Patek. There are still a few examples of the Howes signed Pateks online in past listings (which are very rare) but this Movado is the only one I can find with the double signature. Especially with still having its original snake (Kris) hands this is a pretty rare watch!

CONDITION NOTES

CASE: Good case. While lightly polished in the past the watch maintains its original shape. Crown and pushers are good too.

DIAL: While not perfect, the blemishes that are on this dial like the missing lume plots don’t really bother me too much especially since this is common for these watches. What I really pay attention to is that the printing looks good, the base paint is in great shape and the subdials are perfect, which they are. There are no scratches on the dial itself, just a couple of the markers.

HANDS: Like the dial, not perfect but pretty good for its age. The original red hand is the star here.

MOVEMENT: Serviced in 2018 and still running great.