This Elgin 0-size pocket watch dates to 1897. The 14k gold-filled case holds a low-grade movement, that when I received it, had a tangled hair spring. After a service, it’s running pretty darn perfectly — especially for a 120+ year-old watch.
More importantly, and impressively, this is a family heirloom. My great great-grandfather owned a jewelry store that sold Elgins. Whether or not this was sold by, or to, his store is questionable. His son, my great-grandfather, likely acquired this, as he tried to collect his father’s watches. Some way or another, it ended up with my mother, and in her jewelry box, un-running.
Though the details are fuzzy, and the service wasn’t necessarily cheap, I’m excited to have this watch back in my safe, in the watch box, running and on a braided leather strap for those days when I’m feeling fancy or nostalgic.
Thank you, as always for the time to come and read the site. I also apologize somewhat redundant and repetitive framing/composition with this watch. Because of it’s clamshell (called a hunter) case design, and because I didn’t want to shoot the watch upside down, the images aren’t TOO crazy inventive.
