New to pocket watches

[Christian Cyclist]

Hi!

My name is Boris. This is my first post to the board. I have been collecting watches for about 3 years now and I have recently discovered the wonderful world of pocket watches. My first pocket watch arrived last Wednesday. It's a beautiful Elgin with a serial number that dates it to 1910 (if I remember correctly). The condition is nowhere near pristine but it ticks along strong and steady. It seems to gain several minutes per day and I have slowly been tweaking the regulation to hopefully slow it down!

Pocket watches are little overwhelming right now as I learn the different manufacturers and their histories and impact. I didn't expect so many "private" labels. Are these even collectable?

Cheers! :-)

-- Boris

[Christian Cyclist]

Hi!

My name is Boris. This is my first post to the board. I have been collecting watches for about 3 years now and I have recently discovered the wonderful world of pocket watches. My first pocket watch arrived last Wednesday. It's a beautiful Elgin with a serial number that dates it to 1910 (if I remember correctly). The condition is nowhere near pristine but it ticks along strong and steady. It seems to gain several minutes per day and I have slowly been tweaking the regulation to hopefully slow it down!

Pocket watches are little overwhelming right now as I learn the different manufacturers and their histories and impact. I didn't expect so many "private" labels. Are these even collectable?

Cheers! :-)

-- Boris

[Jerry Treiman]

Boris - welcome to the world of pocketwatches. Pocketwatches offer an extremely wide arena for study and collecting, from early European keywind watches through the development of the English and Swiss industries and the rise (and fall) of the American watch industry. The American companies include the giants like Elgin and Waltham and the dollar watch industry as well as the smaller companies (Hamilton, Illinois, Howard, Rockford, South Bend, Hampden etc.), some which endured for many decades and others which rose and fell more quickly. Most of these companies would make private label movements and it takes familiarity with key movement characteristics to tell who actually made them. (Swiss private labels may be even more difficult).

Private label watches can be an interesting focus and many are collectible. The collectibility of any particular label may vary with the times and collector interest and may even be very personal (such as a label from your hometown).

As for your new Elgin, an error of several minutes a day may be beyond the reach of simple regulator adjustment. You should probably have a watchmaker check it out. This error, for example, could be result of a hairspring problem, magnetism or tinkering by someone who did not know exactly what they were doing. An Elgin should be readily repaired/adjusted to keep very good time.

[Kent]

Hi Boris:

Please add my welcome to Jerry's.

To add to Jerry's comments, private labels can be very interesting and collectable, depending upon what the label is. I've taken a liking to Longines railroad grade watches that have been privately labeled for a firm named R. Hemsley (http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-9/1217458/Hemsley_RR_Watches.jpg) in Montreal. I've managed to obtain a set marked Hemsley's Canadian Railway (http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-9/1217458/Hemsleys_Canadian_Railway_LR.jpg), two of which have consecutive serial numbers.

Hopefully, you've found your way to the Elgin web site. Basic information about an Elgin watch, including its approximate date of manufacture, can be obtained by using the serial number on the movement (the "works"), not the case, to look the watch up on Wayne Schlitt's Elgin watch web site at <span class="ev_code_brown">elginwatches.org</span>. Choose "Elgin Databases" on the left-hand side of the page and then "Serial Number Lookup." Be sure to type in the serial number without any spaces or commas. If you enter a space and then "v=13" after the serial number, notes on surviving examples will be included in the ensuing report. These were as reported to Wayne, or as he found them on them internet. After you look up your watch, choose "Watch Codes" from the menu in the left-hand side of the page, that's where the abbreviations are explained. There is a lot of other good information on the site on Elgin watches and on pocket watches in general. Its well worth a couple of hours to go through different sections.

Oldwatch.com's Elgin Production Date Table (http://www.oldwatch.com/elgindate.html), or the PocketWatchSite's Elgin Date Table (http://www.pocketwatchsite.com/elginserials.html) also provide a means for determining the approximate production date. In general, we think of serial number lists (not just for Elgin, but for other watch manufacturers as well) to only be accurate within a year or two at best, and recognize that there are numerous exceptions wherein which the dates may be off as much as 3 years or more.

Good luck,

[Christian Cyclist]

Kent / Jerry,

Thanks for the replies! I am impressed that it is possible to look up and find information on private label watches. There was a pocket watch on eBay made for the Gregg Publishing company. I tried to do a search on Google for "gregg publishing pocket watch" and nothing came up. I couldn't tell who made the movement or anything like that from the picture.

I looked up the serial number of my Elgin. It is 15583920 and the database on elginwatches.org confirmed the date to 1910. The movement grade is 293, has 7 jewels, and it is gilded. I didn't realize that my movement was gold plated!

I scour the eBay auctions because it seems to be a way to get a big search-able snap shot of watches in one convenient spot. Now I have to be careful that I don't become a "watch acquirer" and remain a "watch collector". When I first got hooked on watches I almost wanted to buy one of everything only to discover that I didn't like certain watches and some of them had the same movement with only a different dial. Although it was very fun, it was random and impulsive buying.

-- Boris

[Jerry Treiman]

Boris -- I found the auction for the Gregg watch you must have been referring to. From the case construction it looks like a "dollar watch". It reminds me of a Westclox I used to have, but could be from one of the other companies.