Here is a interesting private label Elgin 18 size grade 82 15 jewel .
signed on the dial Rovelstad Bros. Elgin Ill.

Signed on the movement Johan Sverdrup

The elgin site lists a couple more signed the same as this one..Wonder who Johan Sverdrup was and if Rovelstad Bros was a jewelery store.

I serviced this one and it,s a good runner.

movement

That's one classy looking watch - clean, simple lines. Very beautymous, Samie.

I wonder if the name from the movement was this guy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Sverdrup

He was the 1st Prime Minister of Norway & the person I list below Amund Rovelstad's parents were from Norway.

The Rovelstad Brothers was a jewelery store in Elgin. I am still researching the names but I did frond a Amund Ruben Rovelstad that was an engraver for Rovelstad Brothers.

I will see what else I can find.

Tom

Maybe David will chime in on this one, since I know that he has serviced and re-sold at least three of these private label watches....I bought one from him recently....

Mine is an 18size 15jewel, grade 44 Mdl. 5 Ca 1889....

This one Samie is a grade 82, 18s, 13-15j, Ca 1884....

They are both GM Wheeler stock movements....I don't think any of the Rovelstad Bros. movements were 'Adjusted'....

This one has a cleaner dial than mine....Nice watch Samie....

Regards,

Jerry

From Elgin Day's Gone By author E.C. Alft

Rovelstads live all over the United States. Although only a few branches of the ancestral tree remain here, this was the place their roots first took hold in America.

Two brothers, Peder and Sigvart Rovelstad, arrived in Elgin from eastern Norway in 1869. They left the family homestead in North Odal, about forty-five miles north of Oslo, for a little Midwestern city that was prospering with its watch and dairy industries.Four other Rovelstad brothers-Andrew, Hans, Erik and Theodore-would follow them to Elgin and,like Peder, find jobs helping to make fine jeweled watch movements. Andrew, a younger brother, came to Elgin in 1872, and Hans arrived in 1877. When Peder returned to Norway for a visit in 1888, he came back with an older brother, Erik, and his family. Theodore, who made the Atlantic crossing in 1886, was the last to come over.

Peder married a Swedish girl, Anna Louisa Anderson, in Elgin and was the first to become an American citizen. They were charter members of what is the now the Bethlehem Lutheran Church, and it was to their home that newly arriving Scandinavian immigrants came for counsel and sometimes an Americanized name.

Sigvart died in 1871, and Hans left for Ohio during the Panic of '93, but the four remaining Rovelstads and their wives raised twenty-seven children in Elgin. These Norwegian families were hard-working, closely knit, and attached to their churches.

Because the first generation was so prolific, if you were an Elgin resident in days gone by, it would have been bard to escape some contact with a Rovelstad. Perhaps one of them worked in your department at the watch factory, or sold you an engagement ring, or lived in your neighborhood, or was in your graduating class at the high school, or pulled your teeth.

Many Rovelstads were long identified with the Elgin National Watch Company. Erik was employed at the big factory along National Street for 34 years; his son, Carl Arthur, for 45 years, and his grandson, Edgar, for 46 years. Theodore was a watch worker for more than 40 years and his son, Aarne, was on the job for 38 years. Rovelstad wives and daughters also worked there. Fifty years ago, before the third generation began scattering over the country, of the 15 Rovelstad households in Elgin, ten were occupied by active or former employees of the Elgin National Watch Company.

One of the exceptions was Amund E. Rovelstad, Erik's son, who was employed by the David C. Cook Publishing Company for 51 years. Another was a son of Andrew, Dr. Henry R. Rovelstad, who practiced dentistry in Elgin for more than 35 years. Dr. Henry's two sons, Gordon and Wendell, were also dentists. The three Rovelstad dentists were each elected president of Elgin's Rotary Club.

Peder and Andrew were active in the founding of the little Zion Norwegian -Danish Lutheran Church on Griswold Street in 1882. Peder was one of the first deacons and the first organist. Andrew directed the choir for 30 years and was succeeded by his son, David. Another of Andrew's sons, Adolph, was one of the first babies to be christened at the church. Helen Rovelstad, Erik's granddaughter, married the church's pastor, the Reverend Ingolf Rognlie, who had the longest tenure at one church of any Elgin minister.

A Rovelstad family venture was long a fixture downtown on East Chicago Street. Peder and Andrew left the watch factory in 1883 to become partners in a jewelry store, opening up in a space ten feet wide and 40 feet deep. Their experience, integrity, and enterprise soon led to a thriving business. In the springtime Andrew would fill satchels with watches and jewelry and head north to the lumber camps of Michigan and Wisconsin, where Scandinavians were employed in large numbers. He also drove a carriage into the rural areas surrounding Elgin to sell to farm families. In the early days, the firm dealt in steamship tickets and sold and financed transportation for many immigrants. Four generations of Rovelstads worked at the store before it finally closed its doors in 1959. J. Arthur Rovelstad, Peder's son, was associated with the firm for nearly 70 years. He became a leader in Elgin's business community and served on the board of directors of what is now the Home Federal Savings & Loan Association for 39 years.

One of the reasons the Rovelstads made such rapid progress in becoming Americans and prospered in their adopted country was their faith in education. The second generation was encouraged to attend and graduate from high school in a day when most students left classrooms after the completion of the ninth or tenth grade. Twelve Rovelstad offspring received diplomas between 1890 and 1907. Three Rovelstad parents served on the board of education. Of the more than 50 graduates of Elgin High School listed in the prestigious Who's Who in America because of their significant achievements, three were Rovelstads. One of them, Trygve, was a noted sculptor and medalist.

The little town of about 5,000 residents that Peder Rovelstad first saw in 1869 is now an industrial city and service center with a population approaching 80,000. If the immigrant families arriving today find as many opportunities to contribute to our community well-being as did the Norwegian Rovelstads, Elgin will be indeed fortunate.

Thank You TOM! A great history. Only IHC185 can "put it all together. I would really like to know the connection to Johann Sverdrup whose name is engraved on the movement of EVERY Rovelstadt signed dial watch I have had and that includes Elgins, Illinois and a very very nice Hamilton.

I would be willing to bet they named it after the gentleman I linked to in my 1st post. Since he was famous in Norway during the time the two Rovelstad brothers were growing up in Norway I think that might be the connection. It would also appear that they concentrated selling to Norwegian immigrants & I am sure the name would be a good selling point.

There is also the possibility that they were related some how.

I think you would win that bet, Tom....I would take a little of that bet also....

Dave, Samie's movement, above has the same name on it that does all the rest that I have seen....

Very interesting Private label indeed especially when you have a historian like IHC185 does, one Thomas Brown, Esq....Great job Tom....

Regards,

Jerry

Pretty Neat, As J. Sverdrup was Norway's Benjamin/Thomas/Franklin/Jefferson with a little bit of Adams. Memorializing him on many made and sold in USA watches would give Rovelstadt and Bros. quite a "lead" in selling to the population of their Wisconsin, Minnesota, NO/SO Dakota market, "dontchya know".

Thanks everone for the information it makes the watch much more interesting.

Tom thank you for all the great info. mighty nice of you too look up these private label watches for everone.