I have pondered a bit about the Elgin grade 150 for several reasons. It is obvious that Elgin misjudged the market when it rolled out the 149 hunter lever set and the 150 open face pendent set. The RR trend was toward the open face lever set and Elgin's competition all had a big dog 21j 18s ready, 940, Vangard, New Railway etc and Elgin had nada in the 1895-1897 time frame! The first run of the 150 was nearly if not all 20j, there was a second run of 2000 (one pulled for 277)333/1666 and then a third run of 1000. My LS 150 is from the 3rd run, it is a lever set, not a retro-fit, not a franken-zoid, not a 277, not a 181. Another LS 150 just finished on Ebay yesterday from the 2nd run, it appears to be like mine but without the dial pulled it could possibly be a retrofit, a friend of mine purchased it so I can get some pictures without the dial.
Elgin seemed a bit namby-pamby with the lever sets 150/277 almost like they were trying to figure something out. So my question is there different technical issues that are presented by a lever set open face setting mechanism that would have been different than the lever set mechanism on the already in production hunter movement grade 149? If anyone needs pictures of the pillar plate I can upload them.

Claude, you raise several interesting poiints. These went through my head when I listed a 149 that closes this coming sunday;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...ageName=STRK:MESE:IT

First, Market;
a. Elgin correctly judged (in their view) a market for a good 21J full plate movment that used their much more accurate and reliable Anchor Pallet Fork design. The Waltham 1883 was stuck with an antiquated pillar plate supported Stright Lever Pallet that was simply NOT truly 5 position adjustable!(My opinion). Probably (in part) for that fact Waltham only made 400 of the 83's in 21J.

b. Waltham had gotten the "drop" on the watchmaking business with their "faux" 3/4 plate looking (no pillar) design model 1892 that DID allow for 5 position adjustment, forcing Elgin to "buy time" by upgrading whatever they could in 18s Full PLate design to 21J RR Movements. Hence some 149-50's, Father Times, etc.

c. Ultimately that paid off by allowing Elgin to create and market the Model 8. The Elgin 18s Model 8 is the ONLY TRUE 3/4 plate watch everr made and the finest design 18s watch EVER offered to the US Market! Bar None!

Second, LEVER SET DESIGN;
After working on Elgins from Abbot converted KWKS up to and through the 149/150 watches, all I can say is that for reasons only known to Elgin, they went through enough Lever setting design variations to arguably compete with the complexities of life described by Darwin in his "origins of Species"!

Still, the 149 is a fine piece, not intended really for Railroad use, but adjusted to that level indeed.

With the exception of the 57X grades you don't normally hear of Elgin having weak lever set mechanism but I tended to believe they were doing some things on the fly to improve the mechanism, I have the following full plate 21j Elgin versions, 149,150,181,266 so I will have to remove the dials and take some pictures to see if the set mechanism was a work in progress. On the 3/4 plates I have the FT 367 and the BWR 390 both very nice, sturdy watches. So the logic of the 150/277/181/266 hold over for the 3/4 plate tends to be on of the better responses I have received so far.

Claude, recently I posted on one of the first (and most complicated) Elgin Lever set designs which by virtue of the fine toothed planetary gear arrangement was (can I say) "lacking in robustness".

You can review that post at;

https://ihc185.infopop.cc/eve/f...=654101813#654101813

Dave I will pull the dials of my watches (full plate 20/21J) and post pictures of the mechanisms so that on this topic in the future people can see the transitions and progress of the OF lever set mechanisms. I will also pull the dials on my 367/390 to show the end results. I think the 367/390 would be some of the last 3/4 plate 21j designs that were adjusted to 5 positions before Webb C killed the 18 size off. You had the 4xx 21j 3/4 plates but those were adjusted to less than 5 positions.