A friend of my eldest daughter came up with an 1895 18s full plate hunter cased Elgin pocket watch. In his research, he found it was a Grade 163, but we can't find it anywhere in the book that gives the price breakdown for the watch. Any ideas where I should look? Regards. Mark

Mark,
The following address will list all of the Grade 163 watches that have been offered for sale on eBay and listed by Wayne Schlitt on his superb Elgin web site.
http://elginwatches.org/cgi-bin/search_logs?re=163&action=Search

Mark,

Although this grade had a low production run, the case will be the determining factor of value. Shugart's would consider this an ordinary 17J, 18s watch and price it accordingly. Do you have any pictures of the movement and case? Many of these hunter movements ended up in open face cases and sell for about $75.00 to $125.00 on eBay. In a good gold filled case, look for about $140.00 to $200.00 and 14K solid gold would triple the gold filled prices.

These prices are from my personal experience. I would follow Ed's advice and see what 18s, 17J Elgin watches are selling for on eBay. You could then consider those prices at about wholesale value.

Thank you, John. From what he tells me, he had it looked at by a local jeweler/goldsmith, and it's a solid gold hunter case, but the makers marks were not the least bit familiar to him. It's going to require some major work, as the front cover is broken completely off, but he tells me there is very little wear on the case itself, and is quite ornate. He also says the watch has been keeping great time. He's supposed to be taking photos of the watch today, and hopefully he'll send something over to me this weekend. I'll share them with you when I get them.

Thank you Ed. I gave him Waynes address, and he was able to pull off the info regarding grade and such from there. We were just puzzled as to why the 163 grade was not plainly listed in the current Shugart book. They found a listing in the 1995 issue, but nothing in any issue since.
Thanks! Regards. Mark