Illinois? Help

[Bayernland]

I have a 14K pocket watch, 16 size, serial number 1,438,518. The Dial and movement are marked William F. Stillger, New York.

I thought it was a Waltham because of another similar case/same jeweler watch I have. An interesting characteristic is a crescent moon shaped click. I found an image of an Illinois watch marked #172 in an old book called "American Pocket watch, identification and price guide" by Roy Ehrhardt Book 2 circa 1980.

Can anyone tell me about this movement or William F. Stillger, New York.

I have an image of the movement if someone would like to see it.

Regards,
Dwane

[Timebuilder]

I am not a watch collector so my info is rather limited, however what I do know is your watch is a Getty model.

Illinois produced many private label watches for many different retail jewelers.

Yours is one of them.

[Fred Hansen]

Hi Dwane -

Your watch was made in about 1898 by the Illinois Watch Co. and is a 16 size model 4. The 16 size Illinois models 4 and 5 were the Getty models as Timebuilder posted above, with the model 4 having its winding position at 3 O'clock and the model 5 winding at 12 O'clock. The most distinctive feature of this Getty model movement design is the one visible winding wheel and the crescent click.

Your particular watch is a grade 174 ... a nice middle quality unadjusted 17 jewel model. The decorative pattern on the plates of your movement is known as damaskeening, and the wavy pattern on your watch is the one most often seen on the grade 174.

As Timebuilder posted Illinois made many thousands of watches specially marked (private-labelled) for a huge number of different individuals. I have followed Illinois private-labels and have seen many hundreds of different names on these but do not think I'd seen Stillger of NY before, but this is not surprising and the fact is I run across probably a dozen names I hadn't seen before every month.

I ran an internet search on Google of this name just now, and it turns out there is a clock currently on eBay with this individual's label on it. The seller did not include a close-up photo of the label, but perhaps you could write and ask for this and if you are lucky it may include information about Stillger's New York street address. From there you might be able to contact a NY historical society for further research.

Good luck!

Fred
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[Kent]

Dwane:

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 [colour=blue]Russell W Snyder's Illinois Data Base CD[/colour], which may be obtained by an email to Jon Hanson at jonontime@aol.com 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.

Having looked up serial number 1,438,518 in the above references, it can be seen to be, as Timebuilder noted, a 16-size, Illinois model 4 (commonly referred to as the Getty model), grade No. 174, hunting-case movement, built in about 1898. Although modest, it was a popular movement, over 25,000 were produced between the years 1896-1911. You can see a picture, catalog description and where it fit in Illinois' line of 16-size watches on pages 79 and 80 of the 1903 Oy Company Catalog at:
[colour=brown]www.elginwatches.com/scans/sales_catalogs/1903_Oy_Company/m_index.html[/colour]

b][colour=blue]To view, go to the [/colour][colour=brown]Elgin Watch Collectors Site Home Page[/colour] [colour=blue]at[/colour] [colour=brown]elginwatches.org[/colour], [colour=blue]then copy and paste the address in your browser's address bar and click on [/colour]'Go'[/b].

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 "[color=blue]Decorative Aspects of American Horology[/colour]," by Philip Poniz, can be viewed on The Antiquorum Magazine 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.

I googled the name of the jeweler, William F. Stillger, but only came up with a cuckoo clock that was labeled for him that is currently on sale on eBay (eBay Item number: 150089426036).

Hummmmmmm..... I see that Fred types faster than I do.

Good luck,
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[edit=36=1171316476][/edit]
[edit=36=1171316625][/edit]

[Bayernland]

I neglected to mention the case is highly decorated 14K hunter case marked A.W.C.CO (14K) 109233. It is a very thick and high quality feeling case.

Originally Posted by Kent

Dwane:

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 [colour=blue]Russell W Snyder's Illinois Data Base CD[/colour], which may be obtained by an email to Jon Hanson at jonontime@aol.com 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.

Having looked up serial number 1,438,518 in the above references, it can be seen to be, as Timebuilder noted, a 16-size, Illinois model 4 (commonly referred to as the Getty model), grade No. 174, hunting-case movement, built in about 1898. Although modest, it was a popular movement, over 25,000 were produced between the years 1896-1911. You can see a picture, catalog description and where it fit in Illinois' line of 16-size watches on pages 79 and 80 of the 1903 Oy Company Catalog at:
[colour=brown]www.elginwatches.com/scans/sales_catalogs/1903_Oy_Company/m_index.html[/colour]

b][colour=blue]To view, go to the [/colour][colour=brown]Elgin Watch Collectors Site Home Page[/colour] [colour=blue]at[/colour] [colour=brown]elginwatches.org[/colour], [colour=blue]then copy and paste the address in your browser's address bar and click on [/colour]'Go'[/b].

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 "[color=blue]Decorative Aspects of American Horology[/colour]," by Philip Poniz, can be viewed on The Antiquorum Magazine 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.

I googled the name of the jeweler, William F. Stillger, but only came up with a cuckoo clock that was labeled for him that is currently on sale on eBay (eBay Item number: 150089426036).

Hummmmmmm..... I see that Fred types faster than I do.

Good luck,

[Bayernland]

Case is marked A.W.C.Co (14K) 109233

Originally Posted by Fred

Hi Dwane -

Your watch was made in about 1898 by the Illinois Watch Co. and is a 16 size model 4. The 16 size Illinois models 4 and 5 were the Getty models as Timebuilder posted above, with the model 4 having its winding position at 3 O'clock and the model 5 winding at 12 O'clock. The most distinctive feature of this Getty model movement design is the one visible winding wheel and the crescent click.

Your particular watch is a grade 174 ... a nice middle quality unadjusted 17 jewel model. The decorative pattern on the plates of your movement is known as damaskeening, and the wavy pattern on your watch is the one most often seen on the grade 174.

As Timebuilder posted Illinois made many thousands of watches specially marked (private-labelled) for a huge number of different individuals. I have followed Illinois private-labels and have seen many hundreds of different names on these but do not think I'd seen Stillger of NY before, but this is not surprising and the fact is I run across probably a dozen names I hadn't seen before every month.

I ran an internet search on Google of this name just now, and it turns out there is a clock currently on eBay with this individual's label on it. The seller did not include a close-up photo of the label, but perhaps you could write and ask for this and if you are lucky it may include information about Stillger's New York street address. From there you might be able to contact a NY historical society for further research.

Good luck!

Fred

[Bayernland]

Thank you so much for this information. I have never heard of the Getty models. I will look into the resources you mentioned.

Thank you again. Great Help!!
Dwane

[Bayernland]

Just in case you didn't see my reply...the case is marked A.W.C.CO (14K) 109233

[Kent]

Dwane:

The American Watch Case Co. (AWCCo) seems to have been a Canadian company and all of its cases are believed to have been Canadian-made. However, this fact doesn't appear in their ads in The Jewelers' Circular - Weekly and Horological Review and the address of their sales office is listed originally on John Street and later on Maiden Lane, both in New York City. A 1908 Ad serves as an example. Canada, Mexico and the United States are all part of North America, hence the word "American" doesn't necessarily mean "from the USA." However, it is suspected that the American Watch Case Co. was so named as to give the impression that it was a U. S. company, especially in light of the fact that their plant location isn't revealed in their ads.

Good luck,
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