Watch Clubs

[Greg Frauenhoff]

Elsewhere, Cort had a question about watch clubs. Nahum Lewis wrote about them in the Bulletin and I had a minor note in such about an Aurora marked "Union Watch Club". Columbus made private label mvts marked "American Watch Club Co.". Just so happens I have a junker Rockford handy for the "Union Watch Co". Was this the same as the "Union Watch Club"? I don't know. Anyone else have something on this topic to share?

 

[PatH]

Here are a couple of threads about watch clubs...

https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/south-bend-and-watch-clubs.124049/

https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/american-watch-club-newburgh-n-y-dial.161607/

The two Watch Club articles that Greg mentioned in the Aurora to Hamilton thread can be found in the following Bulletin articles: June 1990 p.264 - Nahum Lewis, and October 1993 p. 590 - Greg

Attached are a couple of Keystone Watch Club ads. The ads were trimmed and undated, so I don't have specific dates.

 

[Greg Frauenhoff]

H. R. Caulfield of San Francisco and Oakland was "manager" of the United States Watch Club in 1890. The only reason I know this is because Caulfield was the guy who ordered the private label Aurora movements marked "Caulfield Watch for Railway Service" in 1889.

 

[musicguy]

Rob

 

[luvsthetick]

In the second of the two threads PatH listed ( https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/american-watch-club-newburgh-n-y-dial.161607/ ) I posted about my two American Watch Club watches in post #10. Both watches have movements marked for the American Watch Club, Cleveland, O. and are fronted with dials for Joseph Schauweker, Jr. In that thread PatH asked if I knew how Schauweker and the Walker-Edmond Co. (Cincinnati, O.) were connected. If there is a connection I still have not found it. Nor have I found any connection with the American Watch Co. Newburgh, N.Y. on Rob's dial.
Schauweker operated his club AWC out of Cleveland, O.

Interestingly in the ad to join the American Watch Club Rob posted from McClure's Magazine there is mention of Egin, Waltham and Remington movements. It describes the Remington movement as "especially fine". The Elgin and Waltham movements would be kept in repair for 1 year free of charge but the Remington would be kept in repair for 2 years for free, guess we know what they thought of the Remington.

Question...........anybody know if this is the Remington movement referred to in the ad?
I never knew it had a possible connection to a watch club.

 

[darrahg]

I want to believe that the Rockford 'Union Watch Company' watch is a private label and did not belong to any club since the company kept a tight control of their product distribution and pricing. They had their own salesmen and permitted only one distributor per town to sell their watches. They did sell watches to Sears but they were stamped with another name (Plymouth W. Co.) with no Rockford stamping.

 

[Kent]

... Attached are a couple of Keystone Watch Club ads. The ads were trimmed and undated, so I don't have specific dates. ...

Here are some dated Keystone Watch Club ads. Its hard to tell if its really a watch club or a sales operation using the name "Keystone Watch Club."

 

[Fred Hansen]

Here’s an interesting one I had recently …




marked “Victoria Chronometer” to its movement and dial.

This was a marking for retailer J.H. Milke & Bro. of Kingston, Jamaica who advertised these watches as part of his "Victoria Chronometer Watch Club" in an 1896 edition of the “Kingston Gleaner” newspaper …

 

[Rick Hufnagel]

Here is another American Watch Club Co advertisement specifically for Hampdens in Dueber gold filled cases. Came across it while looking for Hampden info. Figured it may be of interest to someone.

Locomotive Firemen's Magazine

books.google.com

 

[PatH]

Was just organizing some watch "stuff" and ran across this Keystone Watch Club case opener that I acquired a number of years ago. Only NY, Philadelphia and Balto (Baltimore) are listed at the bottom of the case (2nd picture), while some of the ads only list Philadelphia and some list additional locations. I'm not sure if this could help date the opener, or not.