Elgin National Watch Company
The Elgin National Watch Company, most commonly known as just the Elgin Watch company was a major US watch company.
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[edit] History
The Elgin National Watch Company, was founded in August 1864 as the National Watch Company. A number of former associates of the Waltham Watch Company and Chicago watchmaker J.C. Adams had discussed forming the first large watch company in the Midwest, and after a trip to Waltham, Massachusetts, Adams approached former Mayor of Chicago Benjamin Wright Raymond as an investor. Adams and Raymond convinced many others to invest.
The growing young city of Elgin, Illinois, some 30 miles to the northwest, was chosen as factory site. The city donated 35 acres (142,000 m²) of land, and the factory was completed in 1866. The first movement was a B.W. Raymond, 18 size, full plate design. In 1910, the company built the Elgin National Watch Company Observatory to maintain scientifically precise times in their watches.
In World War II, the company moved into the defense industry, manufacturing bombsights, and other precision instruments. The factory in Elgin closed in 1964, after having produced half of the total number of pocket watches manufactured in U.S.A. (dollar-type not included). The Elgin Watch Company sold watches under the names, Elgin, Lord Elgin, and Lady Elgin. The company produced many of the self-winding wristwatch movements made in the United States beginning with the 607 and 618 calibers (which were bumper wind) and the calibers 760 and 761 (30 and 27 jewels respectively). (USA made automatics were also produced by the Bulova company.)
The company relocated manufacturing operations to Blaney, South Carolina, a town near Columbia, South Carolina which renamed itself Elgin, South Carolina.
The rights to the name "Elgin" were sold to a company called MZ Berger Inc, that specializes in manufacturing its watches in China and distributing them outside the traditional watch dealerships. Elgin-branded watches produced after 1964 have no other connection to Elgin or the Elgin Watch Company. The Elgin company has been sold many times over the years and the quality of the watches may vary depending on what year it was made.
[edit] Gallery
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Front of an Elgin pocket watch from 1911
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Pocket watch with opened cover plate
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Movement of the same pocket watch
[edit] Trivia
- Robert Johnson, pre-eminent Delta bluesman, sang "She’s got Elgin movements/ from her head down to her toes" in his 1936 recording of "Walkin' Blues".
- Elgin American, maker of watch cases and compacts, sponsored the original radio version of Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life from October 1947 to January 1950. (The TV version started in October 1950.) Elgin American was a different company from Elgin National Watch Company (see Allen Gellman).[1][2]
- NBA Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor was named after the Elgin National Watch Company.[3]
- Daniel Beard's sketches of an angel at the end of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court are based on the Elgin National Watch Company's logo.
- The Steeleye Span album Bloody Men contains a track titled "Lord Elgin", which is superficially a standard love song, but in fact is about the Lord Elgin Watch.
- The watch company is referenced in the video game L.A. Noire, which takes place in post-World War II Los Angeles.
[edit] References
- ^ Charlotte Chandler. Hello, I must be going: Groucho and his friends. Doubleday, 1978, p 190
- ^ Groucho Marx. The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx. Simon & Schuster 2007 p 311
- ^ Elgin Baylor bio at NBA website
[edit] Source
- Complete Watch Guide, by Cooksey Shugart, Tom Engle, Richard E. Gilbert, Edition 1998, ISBN 1-57432-064-5
