Hi All,

I know the Elgin "Overland" has been discussed before but I can not find anything in these discussions refering to the Grade 265. I have checked 2 different sources in relation to this Grade but they give conflicting production figures, also these are not listed as Railway Grade but I think they would have been in the day. Can anyone shed somelight on this Grade for me?

Ehrhard's "Yellow Book" shows total production of the Grade 265 at 500 pieces made in 11 different runs within the serial number range of 6563281-6565000.

In comments Roy added 'RR?', being that it is a lever set OF 17J movement.

Oddly the 1980's collectible valuation was only about $50.00. I think that is a typo.

Thanks David for another lot of info, this is again different to the information I have found on the Pocketwatch database site. The pocketwatch database site lists 1,500 produced of the 265 grade across 12 runs over a period of 14 years, I think this might be a error and they might have referred to all "Overland" marked watches regardless of grade. On Jeff Sexton's Elgin site it lists 11 runs for the Grade 265, made over only 1 year; 1897, 500 only produced which aligns with Roy's figures as you have stated. Mine with a serial#6564449 being from the 2nd last run of 70 units in 1897. As you have alluded to, it is strange that it has a very low value considering that it was RRG and had very low production figures. Sometimes it is hard to fathom information discrepencies from some of these sites as I thought they all would be taking the information from similar sources?

Regards,
Bila

Bila i have one overland but in grade 279 that shows as 7000 total production.
and another one in grade 353 with total production of 11000
and hunter overland in grade 163 total production of 8000

Do you know which of the grades you have Peter that are RR?

Bila,I have a Overland Grade 279 from last run.It is not RRG as it is pendant set.It still remains as one of my favorites.
Happy New Year!!!
Roger

no clue on RRG but all are lever set
at some point they must have been RR before all
regulations kick in.

From Wayne's site

grade total runs first yr last yr class size code jewels Adj/name
----- ----- ----- -------- ------- ----- ---- ------ ------ ----------
163 8000 8 1895 1896 3 18s hfn2l 17j Adj / - OVR
165 4500 35-22 1895 1896 8 18s ofn5p 17j ? / - OVR
265 500 11 1896 1896 66 18s ofn7l 17j ? / OVR -
278 2000 2 1903 1903 4 18s hfn2l 17j ? / OVR
279 7000 5 1903 1904 9 18s ofn5p 17j Adj / OVR
352 3000 3 1906 1907 123 18s hfn2l 17j ? / OVR GMW
353 11000 10 1906 1916 124 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P / GMW OVR -
382 47600 47 1909 1917 108 16s obn7p 17j Adj / - OVR


For the grade 353

12912001 12912001 1000 None 1906 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
first run of grade 353; 1 of 11000 in grade

13067001 13067001 1000 OVR 1906 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
13330001 13330001 2000 GMW 1907 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
13503001 13503001 1000 ? 1907 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
13634001 13634001 1000 ? 1908 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
14143001 14143001 1000 GMW 1909 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
16551001 16551001 1000 ? 1911 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
17016001 17016001 1000 None 1912 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
17147001 17147001 1000 ? 1912 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
19573001 19573001 1000 ? 1916 353* 18s ofn7l 17j A-A3P
last run of grade 353
total watches found: 11000

If any Overland was used for railroad service it might have been the grade 353, why Wayne shows A-A3P is this was a transition period where the grades could be marked "Adjusted" but later were required to note the positions. The 352 should be the hunter mate to the 353 but it was in the 1906-07 range which means that "Adjusted" was still good enough to cover heat-cold-pos but here you are getting into the time frame where buying a new hunter and it being accepted for RR service was getting very iffy.

A friend of mine in Alabama that probably forgotten more about Elgins than I know, together in some posts decided there really wasn't enough evidence for the Overland to have been used for railroad service other than the grade 353 and possibly the 352 for any railroad that was still allowing hunter cased watches or conversion dials with the 352 in a OF case. From the condition of my unmarked 353 I would say that it was used for rr service but I have never seen the last run of the 353 to see if it has the "Adjusted to 3 position" markings.

On the 278-279 one would need to see the Elgin factory records for this grade but from what we saw it was only adjusted to "temp-Iso". On the 382 it appears to be only adjusted to "temp-iso" also and a pendant set in the time range where only lever sets were allowed on the class 1 lines.

On the 165 you will note that only 4500 were done, but Elgin did runs in 1000 and if you look you will notice the 265 (only 500) so Elgin did a lever set conversion much like the 150 to 277.

My best guess is that the 352/353 in any marking, ENWC, GMW, or OVR could have been used for RR service when during the time it was produced, the others I think are doubtful.

With the exception of the last grade that was marked OVR, they are not common in any shape or form. If you look at the 353 the total is split between 3 markings and neither my friend nor I have an educated guess on the split ratio but even if you guess that they were split 3 ways you are looking at under 4000 per marking types, on the 352 if they followed the same trend as the 353 the marking was Elgin National Watch Co, GMW or OVR, so probably less than 1500 per marking.

A 265, jump on it big time since only 500 were made.

Thanks Roger, Peter and Claude, Claude, during the 1890's I thought the Railway time service provided for the use of 17 Jewel watches that were marked adjusted and could be in 18 or 16 size. If this was the case the Grade 265 could have been used, therefore would have been a RR grade (not to say it was actuially in service but it was posssible to use it). Under the Railway service conditions of that time the 352/353 grade would have meet no more of the criteria then the 265 grade, would this not be the case?

Best Regards,
Bila

There is a difference in some grades that are marked adjusted and others that are marked adjusted. Case in point the first run Elgin 370's were marked "Adjusted" and were adjusted to 5 positions, the grade 342 was initially marked "Adjusted" and was adjusted to 3 positions. You will find the grades 149 and 150 earlier than the 165 and initially they were only adjusted to 3 positions and at least the 149 was bumped up to adj5p.

Some grades were marked "Adjusted" but were only adjusted to Iso and heat/cold (temp), nearly all criteria that I have seen for mid 1890's and later for RR approval the typical requirement was adj3p or higher. In any ads that we found for the 278/279 were never adjusted to positions. In a 1904 Montgomery Ward ad it mentioned that it had purchased all of Elgin's Overland watches for RR "grade" but that would have been the 279 because of the time frame but RR grade is not always RR approved.

On the 163/165 we could never find it being adjusted to positions, in one ad in the Elgin yellow book on page 109 they show an 1896 ad but it is only listed as adjusted, if you look next to it on the right you see the 164/166 and it is listed as being adjusted to temp and positions. The 166 was later upjeweled to 21j and called the 266.

The Elgin yellow book shows the 163/165 as being RR but if you look at RR standards in the 1897-1899 range they required 3 positions. The first 163/165 would have had their serial number allocated around 1896. Some RR standards mention the best of the grade (for 17j) and the 163/165 was not the best 17j Elgin grade, that was the 180/183 BWR or the 164/166, tough to make a call on the 163/165.

The 265 should have been truly RR grade since when it was converted from pendant set to lever set it would be logical that they would adjust it to positions. We found some ads for the that made that appears to be the case but without the factory description stating that the 265 was adj3p it would be hard to state factually that it could be RR approved since adj3p probably would have been the prevailing min standard for approval.

Thanks Claude for the clarafication, sounds like a keeper, yet to receive it as only purchased two days ago at a cost of $85US, hopefully it will turn out to be a good buy.

Best Regards,
Bila

Bila for $85 you got a steal, these don't show up that often which is why I said "jump on it". If it is marked to positions please post some pictures. In the era of the 165/166/265/266 there are some diamonds if you are aware of them. The 256, 266 and 277 are very limited in production so anytime they are in your price comfort zone you should consider them.

And also it is hard to be firm on if these grades were RR approved since there were a ton of class 1 railroad in the late 1800's early 1900's and they all did not dance to the same music, in the date timeframe and standards for the pocket watches.

Thanks Claude, will post some pictures on it's arrival here, the movemnt is marked 17 jewels Adjusted, "Overland", does not have any positional markings, open face, lever set, a double sunk Roman numeral dial with a fancy block type script. I will be keeping a look-out for the others, I do not mind buying what others tend to dodge, as you say you can pick-up some gems. I picked up a very nice Grade 181 21 Jewel Elgin the other day, beautiful watch with gold jewel settings and gold balance screws for under $150 and keeping great time.

All the best for the New Year,

Regards,
Bila

Bila if you have done this before and feel at ease doing it I would say to remove the dial and hands and take some pictures.

What you should see is the original machining for the pendant set mechanism and the machining that was done to convert it from pendant to lever set.

I had originally done this for the 150/277 but American Greetings who owned "Webshots" decided to sell it and the ip address was changed slightly killing all picture links.

I will have a look when it arrives here Claude,then I'll post back the result.

Best Regards,
Bila

Hi All,

I have just received this so will post photos of the undial machine work for the pendant to lever set factory conversion.

Photo2

Photo3

The easiest way to tell a pendant set to lever set conversion is the slot on the pillar plate near the 12 position where part of the pendant set mechanism was, you will see this on the 277 and other Elgin PS>LS conversions.

I will post some pictures of a last run grade 353 that I picked up off ebay as movement only. I have since put it into a gf case that I bought off Dave F a while back.

It is a nice clean movement and it is marked "Adjusted 3 Positions".

Here's one more Overland 265. Serial #6564407 . Only 42 ahead of Bila's! This one also has the pendant set to lever set conversion.

..and the Face. Needs a double sunk dial.

Production Runs for Grade 265 Lever set
All in 1896 and 1897.
Most of the short runs between these were grade 165 Pendant set

6564141 to 6564150 10 units Grade 265, 18 size
6564161 to 6564210 50 units Grade 265, 18 size
6564251 to 6564270 20 units Grade 265, 18 size
6564401 to 6564420 20 units Grade 265, 18 size
6564431 to 6564500 70 units Grade 265, 18 size
6564801 to 6565000 200 units Grade 265, 18 size
6563821 to 6563830 10 units Grade 265, 18 size
6563861 to 6563880 20 units Grade 265, 18 size
6563911 to 6563970 60 units Grade 265, 18 size
6563981 to 6564000 20 units Grade 265, 18 size
6564111 to 6564130 20 units Grade 265, 18 size

Steven the reason they appear to be short runs is that they were mostly or completed grade 165s and they were pulled from stock or other later departments. If you look at the notes for the 277 some were pulled from stock and some were pulled from the timing department.

Claude,
There must have been a good demand for Quality lever set watches to need to pull and retool to meet delivery. What ever the reason , I'm glad they did it.

Steve

Steven around the time these watches were made pendant sets could still be used for RR service but that was quickly changing to lever sets for RR service and basically Elgin did not have a lot of open face lever sets in the 18s or the 16s models. Their best 18s 21j in OF format was the 150 and it was pendant set, hence the reason for a converted 150's PS to 277's LS. The same was true for 17j grades, Elgin needed lever sets and it was quicker and easier and probably less costly to machine a pendant set grade to be a lever set. So you have the 165>265, the 150>277, the 166 17j upjeweled to a 21 jewel 266 and so on. These are very collectible since they occur in small numbers (converted Elgin grades)

Elgin master record for grade 277

I know I'm bringing up an old subject again on these Elgin Overland grades, but I just finally got one after a long wait.Mine is a pendant-set gr. 279, #10928935.I really like this version because it has a beautiful "Elgin Nat'l. Watch Co." Old English signature on the main plate.I also found some proof that some of these Overland's were sold as being RR grade.On pg.42 of Roy Ehrhardt's 1977 Indicator book, there's an ad reprint from the 1904 Wards catalog showing an Overland Railroad watch, listed as being adjusted to heat,cold, and position and having a double-sunk dial.The copy isn't good enough to see the markings or SN on it though.I have also heard that Overlands were also made in 16S, but I can't find any info about that.Anyone ever see a 16S version?If they are out there, there can't be many. Regards, Ted.

Ted,
Looking through the Elgin grade list I see that some grade 352,353,and 382 were marked as Overland. I have never seen one. We'll just have to keep looking.

Steve

Thanks Steve.I'm wondering if Claude has one or knows of one.Take care, Ted.

Ted on the the 16s Overland I don't think they exist from the factory. Well I should qualify that, if there was a 16s Overland it would be a rare bird, I have a grade 370 pendant set that is not monkey'd with so some odd-bird type errors do exist.

Greetings all,

This thread got me thinking about the 265 “overland” in my collection; turns out that I am the lucky owner of No. 6564999, second to the last of series built. The question I have about this wonderful watch is what should it be front by?

The Elgin signed dial is a single sunk, thin lettered, Roman numeral dial with red five minute Arabic numbers. It also has a set of beautiful moon hands which look great with the dial but I suspect are not correct for this period movement?

What would one expect for dial and hands on this movement? Looking forward to your feedback.

Serge, I like this one https://ihc185.infopop.cc/eve/f...843988967#5843988967

It is shown in this 1899 catalogue, bottom left, seems the priciest they offer.
http://archive.org/stream/20th...rd#page/362/mode/2up

Thanks Claude, and to Serge:Welcome aboard!...if you look at the double sunk bold Arabic dial and hands that Bila posted on his Overland, those in my opinion would be what should be on yours.On the other hand, the original owner of your watch may have had that Roman dial and light hand combination put on it when it was ordered.My Overland has the same type dial as Bila's,most of the ones I've seen pictures of had the bold double-sunks also. Take care, Ted.