Thank you all very much for giving me the opportunity to give a little something back to one of my favorite watch companies.

Thanks again for taking care of this for me, Lindell! Merry Christmas!!

HIGH regards! Mark

Thank you Mark; thank you John and thank you Lindell and all of the members to make this project a big success. It will be a couple of months before the exhibit is ready and I will be there with my camera!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Just to let you great guys know that the Elgin Historical Society has been working on the revised and updated watch factory exhibit. We are in the grunt work stage of planning, sorting and cataloging items. Here is watch I picked up for the military section, which, by the way is pretty sparsely populated.

Here is a dial for the military section.

I also donated this one - a very nice little watch, circa 1911, with sharp, crisp engraving on the case. Sorry the picture does not bring out the shine better.

The updated Elbin National Watch exhibit is open!

I must say that Bill Briska and his (small) crew of volunteers have done a great job and the overall effect is a vast improvement to what was already a nice little museum.

A good part of the overall improvement comes from much better material to work with, much of which was contributed by Chapter 185 members.

For a modest photo tour, click on Museum photos.

Thank you to everyone who contributed and a special thank you to Lindell for helping make this project successful!

Ron supplied some pictures which give you the overview of the exhibit. There are now about 115 movements on display giving very good coverage of the pocket watch era. The military and wrist watch sections are still a bit light weight by the standards of experienced collectors but still enough to "Wow" the average visitor.

The presentation and interpretative material was upgraded and looks very good. There were rave reviews at the public reception we held for re-opening.

The follow up on the stolen watches is this. We finally got back 10 of the 15 stolen (some newspaper stories had the facts a bit off). However, one (a BWR) did not have a case and another was damaged by moisture to the dial. Two of the four painted dials were recovered. We lost a few goodies but are grateful for what we got. The Elgin police really extended themselves by going to Colorado to pursue the bad guy. All these watches are on display, as well all the contributions, plus ones donated or loaned by local collectors.

Many, many, thanks to Ron and Lindell for their help and, of course, to all the donors. We are indebted to them. I feel having these watches on display for others see and to learned about serves a larger purpose. With everyone's help we made a significant move in the that direction.

An excellent project for which everyone should be commended.

For the military and wristwatch section,
I have a World War II, 1943 vintage U.S.Army Ord. watch with an original WWII, new old stock, Elgin marked strap.

Please provide an address and I'll get it shipped out.

Best regards,
Greg

Thanks Greg,

The address is on Page 1 of this topic...


Elisabeth Marston
Elgin Area Historical Society
360 Park Street
Elgin, Illinois 60120


Be sure to mention your gift is part of the Internet Horology Chapter 185 project to assist the Elgin Historical Society Museum Project.

Through the generosity of our members this is going very well.

Lindell

I enjoyed more than a few conversations with Bill Briska co-author of the (re-released again and avaiable at the Elgin Hist. Soc Bookstore) "Elgin Time: A Histopry of the Elgin national watch Co 1864-1968". In the course of those discussions about "Things Elgin", it became clear that they are seriously understaffed and of limited funds, depending mostly on volunteers to "run the show".

I would see this as a real opportunity to raise the banner higher for American-Made watch collectors in general, were we to create a fund that maintained the museum, and library/gift shop in a fashion that would also serve to support a growing interest in watch collecting and a focal point wheresome examples of that are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

With our membership working together, I have little doubt this could be done, and in fect the location of the Elgin Hist. Soc. is not far from some of our principal members, making ir even easier to make a plan for a musutall supported growth facility.

This is just a thought, as when I go to a swap meet and see hundreds of people "shopping" for "old watches", knowing full well that NONE OF THEM EVER HEARD OF NAWCC, I have an incipient urge to get on a soap box, and proclaim; YESS,REJOICE YE WATCH LOVERS FOR THERE ARE OTHERS IN AMERICA WHO LIKE OLD WATCHES TOO! JOIN US!

As long time treasurer of the Museum I can provide you with a little financial background on the place.

We are in a city owned building and they provide the utilties and major maintenance but no money for operations. A little history on the building is notworthy. The building is an 1850s vintage structure. It served as a school building up until the 1970s. At that time it was nearly torn down. The structure was fire damaged, badly maintained and remuddled. The Historical Society raised most of the money to rehab the building (over $300K) and the city took over actual ownership.

We need to raise about $90K per year to run the place. This includes salary for three part time employees who combined total less than one full time equivalent. Salaries (taxes included) use up about 40% of the income. By far most of the work is done by volunteers. However there are several other overhead expenses, such as insurance ($3-4K per year), archival supplies ($1K per year), exhibit construction ($5-10K per year), PCs and other equipement ($1-3K per year), etc, etc.

Financially, the museum is by all industry wide measures well run. We have no debt, a 6 month emergency fund, proper insurance, a relatively small administrative overhead compared to programs and exhibits.

Ten years ago we began building an endowment fund to help with long term support. That money comes from donations directed specially to the fund. The fund is now about $150K. We do not draw upon that for support yet. We figure it needs to each at least $500K before we can take some income off of it for operations. It is the old investment strategy of "saving for your future." I'm sure all you middle age readers can relate to this thinking.

We have other ear-marked "pots" of money. If people donated to a specific items we will use those funds only for that purpose. For instance, if people wanted to donated to watch related exhibits or archives then we would spend money only for the purpose, such as exhibits upgrades, interpretive materials, archival supplies, items for the collection or reference, educational program on watch making, etc.

People wishing to talk to me about any form of support can reach me at BillBriska@cs.com