I just wound up my circa 1901 Elgin Grade 243.
It's in a 14k DuBois Watch Case Co. hunter case, #135,838, also stamped
B.A. & Co., for Benjamin Allen & Co., a wholesaler. The cuvette is inscribed
From your wife, To your 37[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday, May 10[SUP]th[/SUP], 1904. Movement, # 9,723,970.
Grade 243 is one of I believe four grades often referred to as
lace doilies because of their exuberant dasmascening
. Grade 243 was among the highest grade watches Elgin then was making. Grade 243s aren't plentiful. Elgin only made 4,000.
I'd be interested in your views on two oddities relating to this watch.
One is the wording of the inscription
To your 37th birthday. For not
to is how I would have expect this inscription to have been written. Do you think the
For is (a) an engraver's mistake, (b) an inscription ordered by someone for whom English was a second language, (c) a one-time multi-year birthday present intended to cover a period of years up to the recipient's 37th birthday, or (d) the result of something else?
The other oddities are the bracketed words
Ruralness and
Rurality in the ad copy below. Did Elgin use them or were they inserted by someone, e.g., Meggers, who reprinted the ad. What do they mean?