Elgin Watches
Elgin watches are legendary for a few reasons. Elgin was the American watch company that produced about 60 million watches over approximately 100 years. Elgin was one of the first companies in the world to perfect the mass production of watches. To American watch collectors, these have important symbolic value as time pieces produced by the biggest watch company to emerge in the USA.
Elgin was founded in 1864 at the end of the Civil War as “The National Watch Company,” but everyone called them watches from Elgin, after the company’s headquarters in Elgin, Illinois. Their early watches were railroad watches, and these are still prized today. In 1874, Elgin changed its name to the Elgin National Watch Company (by popular demand, you might say). In 1910, they became the first U.S. company to produce wrist watches.
Elgin was not known as a luxury watch, nor was that ever the company’s intention. Their watches, though, were not cheaply made, either. They had a strength and durability that put them in the middle of the market, in a position between cheaper production and hand-made quality.
In the late 1960s the company stopped producing watches and changed its name to Elgin National Industries.
This is a G. M. Wheeler Signature, made in 1884.
Elgin Watch Collection
Because Elgin produced so many millions of watches they are quite fun to collect. If you have an Elgin watch collection with at least one watch from the nineteenth century and one “signature watch,” then you are well on your way to a worthwhile collection of Elgin watches.Elgin collectors still use their watches, and many Elgin watches still keep good time. As there were so many watches produced, it is easy to find replacement parts to keep your Elgin watch ticking.
