One of the first things I realized when making this website is that there’s very little information online about Elgin and the company’s history. This page is far from an exhaustive timeline of the Elgin Company, but hopefully it’s a good enough overview for those interested. The company was originally founded in 1864 and was [...]

The first watch ever produced by Elgin was a railroad grade pocket watch – it wasn’t until 1910 that the company manufactured wrist watches. Elgin was always proud of manufacturing watches that were accurate and reliable enough for railroads, and regularly mentioned this in their advertising campaigns. Why are Elgin railroad watches popular? Railroad watches, [...]

If you want to buy an Elgin watch – or if you have one already and want to know how old it is – Elgin used a system for serializing their movements. This means it’s possible to track down the age of a watch, assuming that the movement isn’t a fake! To start with, Elgin [...]

I haven’t always been interested in timepieces, but collecting and repairing both pocket and wrist watches (especially those made by Elgin) has become a major part of my life. Elgin watches had been a family favorite long before I started collecting, so naturally they were the manufacturer I started with. It was a strange choice, [...]