And the winner is....

Thanks to the generosity of 41 donors, we have, collectively, raised over $3,000 for the NAWCC For All Time Endowment and Capital Campaign!  Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who participated.

Although I didn't reach my stretch goal of $5,000, I originally started the campaign with the hope that I'd raise $1,000 - so I'm delighted to have exceeded my original objective by a factor of three.

I got my start in the hobby of horology thanks to the generosity of others and I know many folks  have gotten their starts thanks, in some part, to me and my HamiltonChronicles.com blog.

One of the ways that I have learned is through the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors (NAWCC).  This year the NAWCC is celebrating it's 75th jubilee and I wanted to see if I could raise a combined contribution through the generosity of my blog's fans.

The NAWCC is a resource for all - and it exists solely by the generosity of enthusiasts like you and me.  Hopefully it will continue to support watch and clock collectors for generations to come.

I've been a member of the NAWCC for almost 10 years.  I joined originally because as a member you can borrow books from their extensive library and that was a great way to borrow Rene Rondeau's original reference book (it's been out of print for a long time).  The NAWCC  museum in Columbia, PA is awesome too... and it's a wonderful way to spend a super-hot afternoon (like it is today).

As part of the campaign, I offered every donor a chance to win a 1913 Hamilton 972 Pocket Watch that I restored earlier in June.  In fact, every $25 donation was an opportunity to win - so there were over 120 chances entered to win - pretty good odds, I think.

Well, it's now July 1st, the campaign is over and it is time to select the lucky winner of this wonderful time piece.

To make the process completely random, I entered every donor into a spreadsheet with each row representing a chance to win.  Then I entered random numbers in each row.  Finally I sorted the rows three times, with each time creating a new random number for each row.  The name in the top row at the conclusion of the third sorting would be the winner.

And the winner is Tom Eanes!

Thanks again to everyone who participated.  If you'd still like to contribute, the campaign is currently active but the raffle is complete.

https://www.gofundme.com/friends-of-hamilton-chronicles

I plan on going to the NAWCC Jubilee Celebration in Columbia on July 18th - maybe I'll see you there!