illinois pocket watch

i have an illinois pocket watch not sure of year or size i took the back off of it and it says 17 jewels illinois watch co. springfield and had a number 2983560 the back cover says i think fahys 20 years guaranteed and had number 967972 and possibly a zero at the end over all the watch is in fine condition and works great i have actually carried it to work for over a year and it has kept time wonderfully i was just wanting to know if anyone could possibly tell me approx. value on a watch like this and maybe how old it is the crystal is plastic so i think it may have been replaced i have had it for 18 years it was in my uncles belonging after he passed on to heaven thank you for any info

[Timm]

Your watch is a 16 size, open face, model 7, grade 304, made about 1916-1917.

They were made from 1910-1921.

Can you post pictures of the dial side and movement of your watch? It would be interesting to see.

I'm sure others will add to this info (or correct it).

[Kent]

Hi jasondean:

Welcome to the NAWCC Pocket Watch Message Board!

You can see where your watch (grade No. 304) fit in Illinois' line of 16-size movements on pages S3 & S4 of the 1917 Oskamp-Nolting Catalog at:
www.elginwatches.com/scans/sales_catalogs/1917_Oskamp-Nolting/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'.

The Illinois Watch Company was founded in 1870 as the Springfield Watch Co. of Springfield, IL. It turned out about five million watches before being sold to the Hamilton Watch Co. of Lancaster, PA, in 1928. An interesting Historical Account of the Illinois Watch Co. is available, re-typed from the pages posted on Greg Frauenhoff's Website, as is an article on Jacob Bunn, a president of the Illinois Watch Co., and son of one of the firm's founders. Brief descriptions and list prices of earlier Illinois movements may be seen online in a 530 Kb scan of an 1887 Catalog.

Hamilton continued production in Springfield for several years and then moved operations to the Hamilton plant in Lancaster. Illinois watches continued to be produced as different designs from Hamilton watches until 1949 when the name was retired.

In seeking information about a watch, it is the serial number on the movement (the "works") that is important.

Information about Illinois watches may be found in "American Pocket Watches Vol. 2, Illinois Watch Co., Encyclopedia and Price Guide," William Meggers, Jr. & Roy Ehrhardt, Heart of America Press, Kansas City, MO, 1985 (may be still in print), and in Russell W Snyder's Illinois Data Base CD. Then, there are Oldwatch.com's Illinois Production Date Chart and the PocketWatchSite's Illinois Date Table which are an online means for determining the approximate production date of Illinois pocket watches. In general, we think of serial number lists (not just for Illinois, 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.

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.

The book, "History of the American Watch Case," Warren H. Niebling, Whitmore Publishing, Philadelphia, PA, 1971 (available on loan by mail to members from the NAWCC Library & Research Center), has the following to say about Joseph Fahys & Co. (which includes additional Notes in Blue by Michael Harrold): Joseph Fahys came to the United States in 1848 and opened a shop in New York City in 1857. In 1861 he built another factory in Carlstadt, NJ and ran it under the name of Foutenbach & Sons (Or, the Fortenback case company in Carlstadt was organized and built entirely by the Fortenbach family, although Fahys may have been their distributor) until 1878 when it was re-named under Joseph Fahys. In 1882, operations moved to Sag Harbor, NY, which is a former whaling port on Long Island (and where Fahys' wife was from). See Sag Harbor In Its Industrial Heyday: The Watchcase Factory.

Fahys seemed to have only made gold-filled, silver and Oresilver (nickel) cases from the late 1880's and up to 1910 (where my research drops off). However, starting in the mid-1890s, Joseph Fahys & Co. is listed (in ads) as the General Agent for the Brooklyn Watch Case Co., a manufacturer of solid gold cases, of which, Fahys was one of the original directors upon its inception in 1873. It is difficult to tell how actively involved he was, or was not, with the company. Fahys brought the Brooklyn Watch Case Co. to Sag Harbor in the late 1890s. At sometime leading up to the turn of the century, ownership of Brooklyn passed to Fahys. The company went out of business during the Great Depression. Interestingly, according to "Fahys of Sag Harbor, New York, Part 1," John H. Wilterding, Jr., NAWCC Bulletin, No. 332 (June 2001), pp. 316-24, in 1937 the Bulova Watch Co. leased part of the Fahys Sag Harbor factory building. Bulova made watch cases there until the plant was closed in 1980.

The fact that your case is marked "... 20 years guaranteed ..." indicates that it is a gold-filled case. A large proportion of movements are housed in gold-filled cases. These cases are made of a sheet of inexpensive, "composition" metal (brass), sandwiched between two thinner sheets of gold by applying heat and pressure. This produces a much heavier layer of gold than electro-plating. One process of doing this is defined by the term, "rolled gold-plate" (which is generally considered to use a thinner gold sheet, see a old ref :iscussion On The Topic). The gold sheet that becomes the inside of the case is thinner than the gold sheet that becomes the outside of the case. Frequently, the purity of the gold used in the sheets, expressed in karats, is stamped inside the back of the case. Some case companies indicated the thickness of the outer layer of gold by using different trademarks for different thicknesses. Before federal regulations outlawed the practice, some case companies indicated the thickness of the outer layer by the number of years for which the case was warranted. Some watch case companies guaranteed their cases to wear permanently, the case would be replaced if it ever wore through to the brass. Examples of these are the:

Crescent Extra grade,
Fahys Permanent grade, and
Illinois (Watch Case Co.) Elgin Pride grade.

Not all case companies were forthright about marking the cases or honoring the warranty (which is what gave rise to the federal regulations). Frequently, the color of the gold (imparted by the metal with which the gold is alloyed) is expressed in conjunction with the term, "gold-filled." Thus it is not uncommon to see terms such as "yellow gold-filled," "white gold-filled," "green gold-filled," and so forth, used in case descriptions.

As it says in the upper left-hand corner of this page, we don’t provide timepiece values. However, now that you know the proper description of your watch, you can use a Google Search to find similar watches offered by internet dealers, or on eBay, and see what they are selling for. Alternately, check the value in the "Complete Price Guide to Watches, No 26," C. Shugart, T. Engle and R. Gilbert, Cooksey Shugart Publications, Cleveland, TN, 2006. A new edition comes out each year in February. The book is available at libraries, at most major booksellers and online at the NAWCC Gift Shop. Condition matters!

Good luck,

[Wes]

Welcome to the message board!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">if anyone could possibly tell me approx. value on a watch like this and maybe how old it is the crystal is plastic so i think it may have been replaced </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

We cannot give values on this message board.

If the plastic is a clear plastic it is most likely a newer replacement. You can still find clear glass crystals and have one fitted for your case if desired.