Soon after the Civil War, the directors of the fledgling Tate's Watch Co. of Massachusetts decided they had to expand their range with other products in order to prosper. Since they already made the cases for their watches, they decided to use them to produce a new line of pocket compasses for the wave of Conestoga wagon trains heading to the West Coast. The new compasses looked wonderful in their shiny cases, but they were so poorly magnetized that people often ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California,Oregon and Washington. This, of course, is the origin of the expression -- "He who has a Tate's is lost!