Is this a Prince? It seems to look like the illustration in the Price Guide.

17-j movement

Inside of case back, some solder repair on one side. Case is marked Illinois Watch Case Co, Elgin, TIVOLI, 7751592, 3/0. Numbers on case body match the serial number in the back. There is no indication of gold content, if any.

John
nice looking watch looks like the Prince,

I am by no means a expert on Illinois watches but it looks right.

The Prince is just another wrong name in the various price guides. When it was new, it was sold as the Atlantic.

Regards,

Ah, ok. thanks! If I decide to dispose of it I will use both names.

I respectfully agree with Rick.

I do not have many Illinois catalogs and I do not know alot about Illinois watches. This watch case is not in the 1928 nor 1932 catalog.

I think it is in the Blue Book Jewelry Store catalog of 1929. All the Hamilton watches and many of the Illinois watches are labeled as Factory Complete. This is not one of them. It is in a section of watches cased by the distributor. Notice it does not have any name attached. Is it the same case? I know the dial is different. When does the watch in this thread date?

Don

The serial number is 5,160,513 which falls into the 1928 time period according to the chart in "Complete Guide ...", after Hamilton acquired the company. The case back is not marked for gold content. It's whatever metal Illinois Watch Case Company used for their Tivoli cases. I think it's probably gold filled.

I checked the 1928 Otto Young & Co. catalog. They were another jewelry supply wholesaler. They have the exact same Illinois Case Co case in white and green (choice of gold filled and rolled gold) holding both Elgins and Walthams. Elgin, Waltham, and Illinois clearly sold movements in addition to cased wristwatches. Jobbers could then purchase cases from the case companies and case the watches. This was a very popular case in 1928-9. I have an Elgin in the non-engraved version of the same shape case by Illinois Case Co.

So the reason for the confusion on the name, is that it had no name. I am sure that some of the jobbers gave it a name. One probably called it Prince, another Atlantic. Otto Young called it 4730 through 4745 depending on the movement, color and thickness of gold plate (they had 16 versions). Blue Book called it 1436 and 1437.

Don

According to Fred Friedberg's great book on The Illinois Watch Company, these cases were made to house Illinois, Elgin, or Waltham movements -- with the Illinois versions now selling at a premium. Fahys, Wadsworth, the Illinois Watch Case Company (IWCC), and others all made versions of this case during the Generic Period. However, Fahys held the patent (filed June 24, 1925 and illustrated in Fred's book) and first advertised the plain-bezeled version of this model as "The Atlantic Case" in the April 13, 1926 edition of The Jeweler's Circular. Further, Fahys also advertised the "3/0 Size Atlantic Engraved", "3/0 Size Atlantic Plain, and the "3/0 Size Atlantic Enamel" in the November 24, 1926 edition of The Jeweler's Circular. Logic tells me that the company who owns the patent gets to determine the name.

The Illinois Watch Company listed the dial as the Atlantic in the 1936 Illinois Materials Catalog.

Interestingly, the IWCC first advertised the watch as a "Riley" in November 1928. This might have been done to avoid copyright infringement with Fahys, or for various other reasons. Because of this, it would seem that this name could also be a possibility since your example is by IWCC. That said, I have never seen any contemporary reference to this watch as a Prince, so I do not see how this could be correct. Perhaps someone has an example of such?

By the way, if you get a chance to buy one, my favorite variation of the Atlantic is a Two-Tone variation commenly called the "Atlantic Plus". It is very similar toy your engraved example, except the center piece is much larger (wider, mostly) and in green or yellow gold fill. It really is a nice variation and I have seen a few sell on eBay in the last year at very reasonable prices.

Regards,

Rick,
Thanks, I appreciate the information. I think I once had a 15-j Elgin in a very similiar case, yellow rgp with base metal back; lost it in a robbery in 1993. It had a a deep curved back also. I think this one is going into the Uh Oh box since the back has extensive wear.

quote:

Logic tells me that the company who owns the patent gets to determine the name.

I would think that if Fayes called the case style "Atlantic", then IWCC would not be allowed to call it Atlantic in fear of trademark violations.

This is all very strange to me, because my main insterest is pocket watches. We are more about the movement. We only care about the case if is "cased at the factory" (or solid gold).

I once told Will Roseman that I purchased my first wristwatch. I told him I found a "Hamilton 980 in a Nelson case." He corrected me and said I had purchased a "Hamilton Nelson", and may or may not bother to mention the 980. It is a very different way of thinking.

Clearly the "Atlantic" was not a very special case. The one on my 15 J Elgin (for which I paid all of $25)is warn like John's. The back is held together with Epoxy. Argh!

It is all very interesting. Thanks for the education.

Don