Is this Elgin 7j Sun Dial for Real?

The whole Sun Dial Mvt.

The Signed Dial

I know it's "Cheep", but somebody used a nice "RR" case! Tough negotiating w camera. It almost seems like it would be more expensive to make a different B'Wheel.
Anybody know more about this "competition brand" Elgin c.a. 1898?

David,
It's an Elgin and since I could not really explain it, I have posted the information about it from the Elgin site.
Also, a lot of cases that have trains on them are not all that great, some are fantastic, but many are very poorly made, so you have to watch out for them and really look them over.

Hope this helps.

From around 1897 to 1899, Elgin made three grades of watches that they didn't sell under their own name, or so it appears. One was the G=177, a 6s hunter case watch, one was the G=178, an 18s hunter case watch, and the last was the G=179, an 18s open face watch. They were all very low quality (7 jewels, unadjusted watches) and it appears that most of them had "fake" compensated balances. That is, the balance wheel was made to look like a bi-metallic temperature compensating balance, but it wasn't, but they were solid brass.

What Elgin lacked in quality in these watches, they made up for in quantity. Almost a half million of these watches were produced. Considering the quality, it is understandable why Elgin didn't sell these under their own name. While these watches are by far the worst watches that Elgin produced, they were still better than the "dollar watches" that started to sell in great numbers around this time and there were better than the low end Swiss watches, which usually had cylinder escapements.

These watches were sold under the "Sun-Dial", "Atlas", "Acme", "America" and "Solar" names. Usually these were marked as such on both the movement and the dial. Sometimes the movement did mention "Elgin", but not "Elgin National Watch Co.".

I get the impression that Solar Watch Co and the Atlas Watch Co were trying to be "real" watch companies, even though they resold other peoples movements, much like the Ball Watch company was a "real" watch company. It appears that Solar sold watches made by both Elgin and New York Standard, while Atlas sold watches made by Elgin and United States Watch Co. Sun-Dial and Acme may have just been names that Elgin used so they could dump cheap junk onto the market.

You can also find the Elgin named watches here.

http://elginwatches.org/databases/elgin_names.html

Thank You Sheila for explaining why Elgin would do this. The short model run and total sales volume of the effort sort of speaks for itself. It's like the Ford "Edsel" failure as a move to counter competition by filling an already overloaded market slot. The watch is near mint, so it probably got "put away" soon and replaced by a better machine. The Case is a "period" Deuber" and the fancy detailed 4-4-0 Locomotive engraving could be an appurtenance added during the Owner's purchase.
I will clean it up and see how well it keeps time now.

Nice summary Sheila. I had never caught the Elgin "Atlas", so indeed there may have been somebody out there selling under that name. One of the things happening here is that "Gay 90's" was a euphemism for "ecomony and employment **** big time". A major depression was just easing during the late 90's, and companies needed low-end products to maintain sales.

Mike

That explains my 6s Elgin Mdl 2 "Atlas" with that same cheep Balance wheel. I had not noticed that has the same un-cut all-brass "fake" design. As this is also a 8,xxx,xxx ser#, it is the same vintage as the "Sun Dial" (1897). Thanks

Correction 7,417,158 closer view of balance wheel

dial

Interesting. At this point, Elgin was dumping low end watches through various distibutors, in competition with low cost makers such as Trenton and New York Std. I wouldn't be surprised if the products were not guaranteed. It is surprising that they were damaskeened, rather than gilt, as damaskeening was time consuming.

Mike