Could they look at and download this article, No. 149 and 150 were published almost ten years ago, in a short article starting on page 225 of the April 2001 Bulletin.
The reason for this is related to the discussion topic Is this an Elgin grade 150, 277 or some other Elgin grade
It seems not many are interested as there are not many of the more knowledgeable jumping in with comments. What this is related to is in the early 1890's Elgin decided to roll our its big gun 18 size open face railroad watch but they misjudged the market a bit and instead of being a lever set they made it a pendant set. If you look at this post the very last pictures is a true pendant set grade 150. If you look at that same post some people have watches that are referred to as lever set grade 150's. If you look at these watches they are so uniquely different it would be like calling a Hamilton 992 the same as an Elgin 992B. If someone can download the article I would love to see what was orginally written since there is a lot of missing details and not a lot of information that appears to be missing.
I am very interested in finding out more about these watches since I have at least two unique Elgins that cannot possibly be grade 150's. If someone can download this article and email it to me I would appreciate it to no end.

Good idea Claude, this may shed some light on the actual processes Elgin went through in making the 150, 277 and 181....

Regards,

Jerry

Thanks Jerry. The watches are so different that saying they are the same is really a reach especially since any ads I have ever seen by Elgin described the 150 as a pendant set. I have never seen any documentation saying that the grade 150 came in either a pendant set or a lever set. I have also never seen the grade 149 described as a pendant set, only as a lever set. I know Hamilton would apply the same model number to either a pendant or lever set such as the early 992's but I think but most everything I see from Elgin is that the are unique about the model numbers and and typically don't blend setting methods. Elgin will pull one grade and relabel them, such as the 150 to the 277 or the 149 to the 348 and this can be found in the Elgin factory notes. I would like to see the article since I think if you look at the photographic information one would be hard pressed to say the watches were the same.

Thanks the article after reading it really leaves more questions than answers. The article say that Elgin switched from pendant set to lever set but if you look at the occurances of the lever sets they happened in more than a few blocks. Some occured in the block of serial numbers 6,4xx,xxx, so if Elgin made a precise switch or even an iffy switch then why would Elgin continue to make pendant sets after 6,4xx,xxx and then there was a block around the 7,435,000 and then again 7,875,xxx. Think of how many 18s 21j pendant set made by any company after the late 1890's since the railroad companies were fast regulating them out of existence, so why continue to produce a pendant set as one of your top of the line watches because the market was vanishing fast. My true pendant set from 7,875,xxx tends to blow that theory out of the water. Elgin was between a rock and a hard spot, railroads were going strictly to open face and lever sets and Elgin had nothing in to fight the good fight with and would not have a big dog 21j 18s until the 181. So they made a stop gap movement, the grade 277 which were converted grade 150's.