Elgin Grade 241 Solid 14K Hunting Case Pocket Watch (1904)

Straight from the golden age of American watchmaking comes this 1904 Elgin Grade 241, a size 16 hunting configuration produced at the Elgin National Watch Company factory in Elgin, Illinois. It is a handsome, well-proportioned gentleman's pocket watch that represents Elgin at the peak of its craft, when the company was turning out more fine watches than any other maker in the world.

The Grade 241 is a 17 jewel, size 16s movement built on Elgin's Model 6 hunting layout. The plates carry a clean nickel finish beautifully decorated with elegant damascening, a sweeping, engraved pattern that catches the light, and the movement is adjusted to temperature, a mark of the more carefully finished grades in Elgin's catalog and a step above the standard-run 7 and 15 jewel movements of the era. This is not a railroad-grade watch, but rather the sort of refined dress-hunter timepiece that a well-appointed gentleman of the early 20th century would slip into his vest pocket for daily use.  

The hunting case configuration, with its hinged front cover snapping shut over the crystal, was the more formal choice of the day. This piece boasts an exceptionally ornate 14k gold hunter case featuring a finely engine-turned concentric barleycorn guilloché pattern, framed by elaborate foliate scroll engraving and Gothic-inspired pointed-arch ornamentation. Cases like this one are becoming harder and harder to find in honest, original condition; the soft precious-metal covers took a beating over 120 years of daily carry, and clean survivors are increasingly scarce. Adding a wonderful layer of provenance, the interior is inscribed to Frank Erath with the date of December 25, 1904.  

Born in 1904, the same year Theodore Roosevelt won election to a full term, the United States broke ground on the Panama Canal, and St. Louis hosted the World's Fair. More specifically, this watch was gifted on Christmas Day, December 25, 1904, the exact same day that the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego unveiled what is widely considered the first electrically illuminated outdoor living Christmas tree in the United States, marking a luminous new era of technology. It is a piece of that history you can still wind and set today.  

All vintage pocket watches offered here are cleaned, oiled and adjusted for accuracy and warranted for one full year from the date of purchase.