When I saw this watch on Ebay U.K. I thought right away "Swiss fake" due to its gaudy apparence and name but when I took it apart for cleaning I came to realize that it was made by Elgin. Has anybody else ever seen this kind of watch and perhaps knows why Elgin didn't put its name on it and called it "America Philadelphia"?

Peter you have a "Centennial" watch that Elgin made to celebrate our first century of independent governance. I think that explained using the "Philadelphia" name as that is the city of our Declaration of Independence.

Peter

The following information is from Wayne Schlitt's Elgin site

From around 1897 to 1899, Elgin made three grades of watches that they didn't sell under their own name, or so it appears. One was the G=177, a 6s hunter case watch, one was the G=178, an 18s hunter case watch, and the last was the G=179, an 18s open face watch. They were all very low quality (7 jewels, unadjusted watches) and it appears that most of them had "fake" compensated balances. That is, the balance wheel was made to look like a bi-metallic temperature compensating balance, but it wasn't, but they were solid brass.

What Elgin lacked in quality in these watches, they made up for in quantity. Almost a half million of these watches were produced. Considering the quality, it is understandable why Elgin didn't sell these under their own name. While these watches are by far the worst watches that Elgin produced, they were still better than the "dollar watches" that started to sell in great numbers around this time and there were better than the low end Swiss watches, which usually had cylinder escapements.

These watches were sold under the "Sun-Dial", "Atlas", "Acme", "America" and "Solar" names. Usually these were marked as such on both the movement and the dial. Sometimes the movement did mention "Elgin", but not "Elgin National Watch Co.".

I get the impression that Solar Watch Co and the Atlas Watch Co were trying to be "real" watch companies, even though they resold other peoples movements, much like the Ball Watch company was a "real" watch company. It appears that Solar sold watches made by both Elgin and New York Standard, while Atlas sold watches made by Elgin and United States Watch Co. Sun-Dial and Acme may have just been names that Elgin used so they could dump cheap junk onto the market.

Tom

Peter

According to Wayne's site yours was made in 1898 & is a grade 179

Tom

Dave, I like your explanation better, but unfortunately, I have to go with Tom on this one!
Tom, Thank you for the very exhaustive explanation, now I know I have "one of the worst watch Elgin ever produced"..Yes the balance wheel is not cut and this is not because the hairspring is made of Enlivar!