I noticed a 16s Numeric Dialed Elgin tagged as a grade 387 (middle 6 figures production) in a "rummage" group of watches that accumulated during my "buck fever" phase of watch collecting. Seeing an opportunity to clean it and sell it to another collector, I went through it and it cleaned up and runs well . . .
Posts: 6492 | Location: Southern California in the USA | Registered: July 19, 2007
Interestingly David's Elgin Dictator movement number 26784026 and the ones Gerald found are from mid-1920s production. It would be interesting to know how long the name was used by Elgin and how many watches with "Dictator" markings were made. Perceptions and public opinion can change as suddenly as wind direction, what sells easily one day can be nearly impossible to move the next. Unlike today, in the 1920s terms such as "Dictator" implied boldness and strength which were of course fine design attributes for watches to have.
Around that same time Studebaker Corporation decided to rename its previous "Standard Six" automobile as "Dictator" and the name was used to market the popular car line beginning in 1927 and for the next ten years. Advertising stated the Studebaker Dictator models... "Dictated the standard for low priced cars" ...but they wisely called the Dictator model lineup "Director" in Europe and they would later wish they had done so in the states. The name was used well into the 1930s but by the latter part of 1937 when Adolph Hitler had become what the public associated with the term "Dictator" that increasingly distasteful name was suddenly dropped. For many years thereafter Champions, Commanders and Presidents would be the Studebaker models of choice.
