I was just given 4 pocket watches. One of them is very nice. It is a 12 size, Lord Elgin, fancy engraved 14K (marked .585 fine) gold case, 23 jewels, safety barrel, adjusted, serial # 12147329 (1905). It has a fancy, single sunk dial. There are no jewelers marks on the inside of the back or on the cuvette. The watch appears "new". Sorry for the poor images. My question is does anyone have a list that would show the original price?
Thanks in advance, Jon

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The bow is tight as are the hinges. By the way, it runs perfectly and looks much better in person!

Jon

I am not an Elgin collector but that is a beautiful watch John.

Steve

I'm sure that Robert Schussel will be weighing in on this soon as he has a few of these fine watches. If I remember correctly the run of these LEs was 1,000 in open face. I have one that is not anywhere near as nice as yours so I am green with envy at your luck since I collect these high grade Elgin's. I've put a link to a sales catalog page with this watch on it from Wayne Schlitt's fine site. If you want to contact me at bleubug@gmail.com I'll be happy to talk more about the early 12s Elgins.

LE 12s

Thanks Steve and Thomas for the kind words. Wow, $120 was a huge price in 1905, wasn't it? I'll be waiting for any comments from Robert Schussel about this fine watch.

Jon

These 23 jewel Lord Elgins are great watches, and hard to find. Yours looks spectacular, but I wonder about the dial and hands. Though beautiful, I would have guessed that they were from the 1920's, not 1905, when your watch was made. The earliest Elgin I have with a metal dial or hands roughly similar to yours is a 1916 C.H. Hulburd. I am attaching a picture of my 1905 23 jewel Lord Elgin, #12,147,375, which is a sister to yours, 46 numbers higher. I believe its dial and hands are typical of what most of these watches came with.

Ethan's comments are also what I have found. I have several 23j 12s Elgin grades 190 and 194 and they seem often to have the dials with the more script like numbers as Ethan's. However, these grades are a bit earlier than the LE even though practically the same design. My LE serial ends with 228 and it I'm pretty sure was re-cased and redialed since neither of these seems to fit the era it was made. However, as people always note some watches may not have sold for years after their manufacture. In order to see the amount of user you movement has had (which may indicate whether it had been re-cased etc.) you may wish to ask a watchmaker to comment on whether it appears to have seen a lot of service.

Best,
TAO

Jon
Although Ehrhardts book of Elgin serial numbers suggests that 1,000 23j OF Lord Elgins were made, a handwritten factory list shows 230.

Your LE is part of the 3rd run of the Grade 194.I am not sure what differences if any exist between the regular 194s and those marked Lord Elgin.

An ad in Ehrhardts book shows the list price for the movement to be $99.00 in 1913/14.

The dial on your watch is unlike any I have seen on the 23j LE.Typically a high grade enamel dial like Ethans was used.

While the 14 size Lord Elgins came in a factory case I have never seen a Grade 194 or 190 LE in a factory case.Typically they came in a very high quality gold filled (I have 2 in identical OF GF cases)or solid gold case.

If I had to make a guess someone had this movement,added a nice dial and put it into a wonderful case fairly recently.That doesn't take away from you owning one of the great 12 size American watches.Grades 190/194 were the first 12 size 23j American watches produced--their quality was as good as anyones.

Bob

PS I agree with Ethan about the hands

Robert,
One question.

I see in the Elgin 1915 catalog that the metal dials actually cost MORE than the enamel. They are listed as:

Metal, Gold Plated or Silver Plated.

Do you think that's because they are plated, or could the metal dials cost the same, and be higher priced than the enamel?


http://elginwatches.org/scans/tech_doc/1915_MC/m_pg037_dials.html

And check out the D14 dial on this page.

http://elginwatches.org/scans/tech_doc/1915_MC/m_pg041_dials.html

Great information guys, Thanks!

Very nice watches too!!!


I forgot to show the photo Thomas listed, you can see it is listed as being fit with the case!?

WOW!

Shelia
I have limited knowlege about the labor involved in a metal vs enamel dial.

However ads from the early 1920s show fancy metal dials (typically made of silver with gold numbers) costing an extra $10.

Dials on some of my higher end watches such as the CH Hulbard,Hampden Paul Reveres ,Waltham Colonials and Lord Elgins are works of art --except for some of the earlier enamel dials that had painted pictures etc most enamel dials pale in comparision to these fancy metal dials.

Bob

Thank you all for the information.

Sheila noticed that the price of $120 was fit with a 14K case, which, I might add, has an identical pendant and bow to my watch. Ethan's is different.

The dial, who knows. I'll look through the catalog for any hand pictures. That may help.

I just LOVE getting all this great information about "MY" Elgins.

Jon, That's what I noticed too, the Bow is exact, and that model came with a solid gold hunter, or Open Face case. Wow!

Robert,
I wasn't really sure about the dials, I like enamel, but do own a few metal that are gorgeous.

I also noticed that if you check out the grade 194, you will see that the Lord Elgin 194 was produced in 3 runs, BUT, the first 2 are marked none, and were produced in 1897, and it's ONLY the last run, in 1905, that shows that they are named Lord Elgin. Then they stop.
So it makes me curious about the handwritten factory list that shows the 230 figure.

This is getting even better!

http://elginwatches.org/cgi-bin/elgin_sn?sn=G%3D194&action=search

Jon
Ethans case is what I would expect for a 1905 case.

The long neck case like yours was more likely to be seen around 1910/15.

Shelia
i think the person who has the handwritten lists is Greg Frauenhauff(sp). This list is more accurate than either the online or one in the Elgin book.

I believe that the 12 size LE were only produced in the 12MM runs.They are much scarcer then the regular grade watches.

Bob

Now, I'm getting confused.............not at all hard to do, I might add.

Robert, if the last run if 12 size Lord Elgins were produced in 1905, doesn't it make sense that the price list and picture of the case like mine is also fron 1905?

Sheila, do you know of a date on that price list?

Thanks, Jon

Robert,
Great, that's good to know, and YES, it's from the 1914's Elgin Catalog, and I do see the difference now. Thank you!

Ethan, Your watch is wonderful, sorry I didn't tell you before. I was just too curious about these 12s, but want you to know that seeing these 12s have gotten me very interested in them.

Robert,
I think you have something there, I've found it very hard to find out a lot about these, and now I'm hooked.

I can't thank you guys enough for all the wonderful information about these.

They are some beautiful watches for sure.

Sheila,

Thanks for the 1914 date. I'm guessing that they didn't sell well because of the price. Otherwise, they wouldn't be advertising them 9 years after they were made.

Jon

I would add one more thing to what Lindell said.

Premium watches were part of advertising campaigns to convey the image that the company made high quality watches.The reality for a company like Elgin was that most of the 12 size watches they sold were of average or fair quality.

You will find Illinois,Hamilton and Waltham having to reduce their prices and/or putting their premium watches in GF cases to finally move them.
Hamilton Grade 400s were put into GF cases and used as presentation watches for Frigidare employees.In solid gold cases these watches were originally called the Tycoon series and sold for $200.

In 12 size less than 7,000 Elgin 23j watches were ever made and until the mid 1920s less than 25,000 12 size 21j were made--total Elgin production was over 20 Million at that point for all size watches .

Bob