Greg, possible I guess never heard that, but all old watches have the service number scratched by the Jewelers. They wanted to keep track of the service dates and more importantly they wanted to make sure you did not take it elsewhere to be fixed and then bring it to them saying they didn't fix it right ... each Jeweler had their own system, some used numbers, others used letters and dates all are unique to that specific jeweler. I am fascinated by them as they are part of the history of the watch. My Hamilton 941 has the scratches from one of the Railroad watch inspectors