American Waltham info

[Winder]

I've just received a family heirloom. It is an American Waltham Watch Co pocketwatch with the serial number of 3849419 and I am looking for information about it. Can you supply me with the info and where else to look, books or internet, for additional information?
Thanks

[Don Dahlberg]

You can look up information on Waltham serial numbers at http://www.nawcc-info.org/WalthamDB/LookupSN.asp

Your watch appears to date about 1889 and is a model 1883 (the year the model was designed). It is an 18 size. It is a 7 jewel watch that was not adjusted to keep good time when held in various positions. It was a lower grade jeweled watch. When I say "lower grade", I am not saying a dollar watch. The movement cost about $10.00 plus the cost of the case. A simple gold filled case cost about $12.00 or more. The average salary was about $1.80 a day at this time.

Don

[Kent]

Hi Winder:

Welcome to the NAWCC American Pocket Watch Message Board!

To add to what Don posted, your watch is a grade No. 1 movement. You can see a brief description and where it fit into Waltham's line of 18-size watches in the 1887 (Updated to 1889) S.F. Myers Catalog at:
www.elginwatches.com/scans/sales_catalogs/1887_S_F_Myers/m_index.html

To view, go to the Elgin Watch Collectors Site Home Page at elginwatches.org, then copy and paste the address in your browser's address bar and click on 'Go'.

Only a small percentage of American watches (or Swiss watches for the North American market) were cased at the factories prior to the mid-1920's (even then, uncased movements were furnished to the trade at least until the 1960's). Most watch companies just made movements (the "works") in industry standard sizes. The case companies made cases in those same sizes. The practice at that time was to go to a jeweler, select the quality of the movement and then pick out the desired style and quality of case. The jeweler would then fit the movement to the case in a matter of moments.

Or, watches were sold by mail-order. Large outfits such as Sears, Roebuck & Co., Montgomery Ward, or T. Eaton (in Canada), would offer the movements in a variety of cases of different design and quality in their catalogs. Smaller mail-order retailers would case the watches, typically in a 20-year gold filled case and offer it only that way, with the buyer not having a choice of cases.

Note: The grade of a case is the quality of the materials and work that went into it. Each case grade was offered in many different engraved designs.

A short history of American watch cases, within the online article "Decorative Aspects of American Horology," by Philip Poniz, can be viewed on The Antiquorum Magazine (http://www.antiquorum.com/vox/june_2002/poniz/poniz.htm) website.

If you can tell us about (or post a picture of) the trade marks or names stamped into the inside back of the case, we may be able to tell you a little about the case material and its manufacturer.

The American Waltham Watch Co. (Waltham, MA) had its origins in the 1850's. It was the first successful company in America to manufacture watches in mass production using machinery to make identical (or at least, near identical) parts. Over the next hundred years or so of its existence, its output of jeweled watches (over 34 million) was only exceeded by one other company, the National Watch Co. at Elgin, IL. Commonly referred to as "Waltham," the company made a full line of watches ranging from modest, affordable watches to some of the finest watches made in this country.

You can learn more about Waltham in the following books:

Timing A Century - History of the Waltham Watch Company, Charles W. Moore, D.C.S., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1945.

Boston: Cradle of Industrial Watchmaking, Based upon the proceedings of the 23rd Annual NAWCC Seminar October 2002, Boxborough, MA, Special Order Supplement No. 5, National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc., Columbia, PA, 2005.

The Watch Factories of America, Henry G. Abbott, Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, IL, 1888 (reprinted by Adams Brown Co. 1981), pg. 67.

The Watchmakers of Massachusetts, August C. Bolino, Kensington Historical Press, Washington, DC, 1987.

The Complete History of Watch Making in America - Reprinted from the Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review 1885-1887, Charles S. Crossman, Adams Brown Co., Exeter, NH, undated, but probably late 1980's.

The watches themselves are described in a number of books, probably the most complete being Waltham Pocket Watch Identification and Price Guide, Roy Ehrhardt, Heart of America Press, Kansas City, MO, 1976.

Good luck,