American Waltham in Boston?

[Jerry Matthews]

American Watch Co on the dial. Serial No 143204, Wm Ellery and Boston Mass on the movement. I didn't know that American Waltham was ever based in Boston. :confused: Would appreciate your comments.

[John Pavlik]

Jerry,

The way I understand it, Boston was used on this model as the location was better known as opposed to Waltham.. the Ellery grade was marketed to be an Every man's watch .. to the masses..with Boston more identifyable to more people in this country..More credible..Every one in the US had heard of the Boston Tea Party:D, not much was happening, of that scale, in Waltham..

[Andy Dervan]

Hello Jerry,

American Watch Co. offered a couple of low end watch grades. One was labelled I believe "Home Watch Co. Boston" to differentiate it from Waltham; company did this because they not want the public to associate this really "cheap" watch with Waltham.

In the early years Royal Robbins was always tinkering with names and grades to sell watches - marketing and selling watches was his specialty. As he introduced a new low end watch he would upgrade existing products slightly.

Andy Dervan

[Jerry Matthews]

Thanks John and Andy for your informative replies.

Just bought the watch off eBay from a known and trusted seller. Not as you say a high grade watch, but I am pleased to have my first civil war era watch. (American Civil War, that is.....don't suppose many watches were being made during our civil war.)

[Andy Dervan]

Hello Jerry,

The Civil War gave Waltham watch production a tremendous boost from pre-war production (15,000 / yr.) to end (50,000 / yr.), because soldiers want a pocket watch going off to war!

If you wanted a watch it was either a Waltham, E. Howard (very low production), English or Swiss! I suspect many wanted to carry an American Watch.

Andy Dervan