I wonder if this topic has come up before but if you look at the Elgin grade 506 you will see the first 6 runs were pulled from the last part of 6 runs of the grade 478. This give me the impression that Elgin was using the grade 506 as a test mule.

What you will notice is that the 5 or 6 position markings are random per runs and if you take a close look, at the ones that are marked 6 positions the 506 or 494 will have a slightly funky looking 6. Eric U. sold a 494 to Larry L recently and if you take a look you will see the 6 has a slight indention on the back and the top looks a bit flat on top, there is currently a 494 on ebay if you look you will see the same funky 6. Eric's pics are nice because they were higher resolution.

If appears that Elgin was testing all of the watches for 6 positions and the ones that passed got the 5 massaged to look like a 6 and the ones that did not pass did not get the massaged 6.

So if you check you will see both the 472 and 478 grades were adjusted 5p and the 506 (21j) and the 494 (23j) were marked either 5p or 6p but random in the runs and the grades after the 506/494 were the 540/590 23/21j were both marked only adjusted 5p unless someone has seen otherwise.

It would be nice if anyone has another 506 or 494 if you could post pictures of them especially if they are marked adjusted 6p, give your impression if the 6 looks like a massaged 5.

I get the impression Elgin was working on getting a train that would consistently pass the 6 position test but it appears they were not able to do that until the grade 571 was released. Otherwise it would be strange to create to low production runs (506/494) that are marked randomly adjusted 6p then the next two grades that replace the 506/494 are rated adjusted 5 positions, something was amiss.

Just for the record I feel Elgin massaged the 5 at the factory once the watch passed the 6 position test.

Claude, can you post photos of your 506 and 494, at least that would give us an idea what you mean by 'massaged'no. 5....

I don't have either a 506 or 494 but I do have the 472, 478 and 540 and you are correct they all are adj. to 5 pos....

Here's the 540....

Regards,

Jerry

Here is the massaged 6, look at the top of the 6 on the 6 before the positions and then look at the 6 in the serial number and you will notice a slightly point to the rear and it has a bit more space between the lower loop and the upper part.

First thing, Larry I hope you don't mind that we are using your new watch from Eric as and example here....

Now, I agree that in that view it does look like the 6 was double stamped to a certain degree but then if you look at the same area of the same watch in a closeup view everything looks as if it was meant to be the way it is from the beginning....
See the photo below....

I think it is just a parallax caused by the angle of the photo....

As to the reasons behind why Elgin may or may not have handled the production of Grade 506 in the manner in which they did, I can't speak to....All I know is that I have been looking for the 506 and cannot find any....

It is interesting though, to contemplate why certain things may or may not have happened....Lord knows, there were many things and methods changed during the production life of these watches and not only with Elgin....I'm sure Hamilton as well as others did the same thing from time to time....Especially during the extremely high competitive years of the 1920's thru the 1950's....

Thanks for bringing this subject up, I agree it is worth discussing....

Regards,

Jerry

Claude,
I just picked up a 506, and the 6 does look a little funny, heres a pic of it.
Bill

mvmt

Bill look carefully at the 6 and you will see that it is an over-strike. The 494 was marked 6 Positions from the beginning but Elgin was using the 506 (basically a 478) as some type of test grade. You will see some marked 5 positions and some 6 positions but if you look at the ones marked 6 positions you will see if you use a magnifier that at one time it was a 5 prior to being a 6. I have two that are marked 6 and one marked 5 and both 6s show the same trait.

Claude I am no expert on Elgins (or anything else for that matter) but it stands to reason that the 5 would be over-stamped to 6. Consider how Waltham handled the matter on the 18s Vanguards during the days of the jewel wars. When 23 jewels were being pushed Waltham turned 21 into 23 on the Vanguard movements. I also recall a Marion key wound I had that had a serial number artfully changed by what must have been a factory worker. It was a lower grade watch and I think a mistake was made and corrected.

Deacon if you look at what Elgin was doing is that on the first 506's Elgin pulled the last 100 of six 478 runs and these would have been marked adjusted to 5 positions. Clearly Elgin must have been trying to accomplish something in the way of timing to the 6th position since you will see more than a few grade 506s that are adjusted to 6 positions and if you pull out a magnifier you can see where Elgin did an artful overstamp to turn the 5 into a 6. Look at my clip from a 506 in the 3rd post and the one that Bill posted and the look is near identical and does not look like the 494 Adjusted 6 positions that Jerry posted.

Probably whatever Elgin was doing if the 506 movement passed the 6th position I think it got another "artful" engraving and if it didn't pass the 6th position it went out the door with the original 5 engraved. I am in Cleveland at the moment but will take pcitures of all 3 of my 506s and you can see 1 normal and one altered engraving and they will look like what Bill posted.

Except for the 494 which usually cost a 1/2 ton to 1 ton when they show up the only grade movement prior to the 571 that Elgin had adjusted to 6 positions was the 506 and for the most part there were only about 5600 of this grade made, a fraction of those were adj6p and they get little or no love by collectors.

Old post with new info

This grade 506 is from the last run of 506's. It is list as Adjusted to 6 positions. The 6 is a 6 and NOT a re-strike. So is this rare for a grade 506? plus it is a wind indicator.

The big question... not all Grade 506 are wind indicators? Out of the 4600 made any indication on how many are WI and how many are not?

Thanks for any comments

Keith the first runs of the 506 were pulls from the last 100 of a grade 478 run and they were probably already marked with Adjusted 5 Positions when they were pulled so a restrike would have been needed for any that passed the 6th position.

Later runs were probably marked with a legit 6 like the 494 when they were produced. If I look at Wayne's Elgin site I see 5 runs of 100 I see two runs that were fairly close 34,133,xxx and 34,205,xxx (which the restrike 5/6 is shown in the post) then there is a bit of a gap and you have two more runs of 1000 34,483,xxx and 34,574,xxx and yours is 665 of 1000 of the very last run. So in your case you might have a last run change to more align with the 494 which had 4 or the 5 runs after the last run of the 506.

On WI percentage I don't think there is any hard data on the percentage that were WI's and non-WI's.