Popularity isn't everything
Before World War II Elgin was the most popular watch in the world if popularity is measured by units sold. There are websites and books devoted to the history of Elgin, so I won't drone on about that. I want to dwell on hinge moments, moments and events that seem ordinary at the time, but given the lens of history take on more importance.
Elgin continued to be popular after the War and sold more watches than any other American producer. I bought the above pictured Sportsman model because I am interested in the decline and fall of many things, especially the American watch industry. This watch is symbolic of the changes beneath the surface that were about to shake up the industry. The history doesn't need quartz.
Elgin had always appealed to sportsmen, or at least tried to.
But the watch in that advertisement (1937) could not be submerged and had no shock protection. Like all early "sports watches" it was no more sturdy than any other watch, it just had less gold plating.
In 1959 Elgin debuted the Sportsman model. It included shock protection, a screw down case back, and limited lume. That's what constituted a mass produced sports watch in 1959. If you are paying attention the advertisement has a tell or two.
First of all, these are young people. Even in 1959 the young were not the ideal watch consumer: low price, low margin. Also, this is advertised as 17 jewel. This was in the era of jewel inflation when everyone "knew" that more jewels were better (see the Bulova 23 for example). 17 jewels was a hint that Elgin would be importing these watch movements. Tariffs made importing higher jewel movements uneconomical.
The Sportsman was Elgin's attempt to stave off Timex who was eating into their market share from below. Timex low cost watches were gaining popularity with budget conscious consumers. And frankly, they had a tag line that could not be beat. Elgin never had a clever ad that I have seen.
Elgin outsourced movements to PUW in West Germany and various producers in France and Switzerland, bypassing their own plants in Illinois, Nebraska, and South Carolina. Mine has a French movement. Elgin had put A. Schild movements in watches as early as 1953.
(Had to ditch the expandable. It was good for an expandable, however.)
The Sportsman was an extremely popular watch, perhaps Elgin's most popular named model. It was made until 1974, six years after Elgin's bankruptcy in 1968. It didn't save Elgin. It was the last gasp of an industry that provided mass produced well made watches to the middle class. 1968 is before the Astron. Quartz didn't kill Elgin. Did it jump or was it pushed (to paraphrase Richard Thompson)?
But it was popular.
In the last fifteen years or so the GShock has sold more units than any other watch. The Apple watch may take that lead. In the 1980's Citizen sold more watches than any other. We all know that Rolex leads the industry in value of watches sold at retail. Popularity may not save them.
All of this is to say that the harbinger of change is probably apparent in the industry if you can just see it. Elgin could not. Acquiring a Sportsman is my way of pouring one out for a late, great company.
Restitutor Orbis. Aristocrat of beauty. Autocrat of time. (Trying to perfect trolling over at theescapementroom.com)
Definitely old school classy! An excellent read as expected, thanks🤝
Cool watch, and thank you for the write-up! I have a post-bankruptcy Elgin that belonged to my girlfriend’s grandfather that I really need to get serviced. There’s hardly any info about the brand after the name was sold, but I’ve seen some pretty interesting models from that era. Love the good old American stuff like yours, though.
Interesting read and a great point about popularity not guaranteeing continued success or even survival.
A cultural shift in the way people perceive conspicuous wealth could be damaging for luxury goods in general, but particularly the hyped brands of today.
Love your write up, man!
You make a brilliant point: It is fascinating to look back in time, and to see what contemporaneous reporting was fixated on. Today, we look back, and we're utterly mystified. "How could they not have seen X coming???" And, yet, I'm 100% positive that 10 years from now, I'll look back and say, "How in the world did I get blindsided by that?"
Great post! I’m a huge fan of Elgin. This was my dad’s watch. He doesn’t have any idea when or where he got it and it’s so unique I can’t seem to find any info on it.
Very nice, thanks for the article. I have an Elgin (railroad style) pocket watch that has been passed down in the family; and it still works.
Weren't they the first company that mass produced watches on an assembly line?
Thank you for the info 🍻
I find it curious in the second advert you posted that they are stating the low price as a big selling point. I can't think of any watch company currently that specifically advertises itself as being the cheapest or cheaper than the competitors as a selling point.
There is always so much to learn. Love this hobby!
Excellent article! Really enjoyed that Greg. More please.
I think this 1934 Elgin in my collection is very similar to the one pictured in your ad from 1937...
It was called the Elgin Moisture-proof Sport Watch, Model 1802, and it has a 15 jewel movement with the case made by the Wadsworth Watch Case Company. It's all original including hands, dial, crystal, crown, etc. It's far too petite for my 7.5 inch wrist at only 28mm diameter and 31.2mm lug-to-lug, but such a classic watch from the 1930s as you state in your article above.
Didn't Timex like, sold watches at...was it like a dollar or something during the time? Or was that a decade later? Cheap indeed. Timex was squeezing a lot of watch makers in America before they either immigrated to Switzerland or held on until the quartz wave killed them dead.
Didn't Timex like, sold watches at...was it like a dollar or something during the time? Or was that a decade later? Cheap indeed. Timex was squeezing a lot of watch makers in America before they either immigrated to Switzerland or held on until the quartz wave killed them dead.
Not sure about a dollar (although the notion of the “dollar watch” was something dreamed up by the inventor of the pin-pallet movement), but competitively priced. Timex really did put a spanner in the works. The issue is that a Timex movement was a jewelled pin-pallet, and to compete companies were starting to import in lower jewelled Swiss ébauches in an era where everyone desired greater numbers of jewels. We’re talking 7J, an absolute bare minimum.
The above advert from Caravelle (pre-Citizen Bulova) shows what certain American brands were up against. For the same price they were offering Timex had managed to convince the public that theirs was the superior product, which we all know is bs.
Thanks for an interesting and knowledgeble read👍Again! And your Elgin looks mighty fine.
My word that is a classy watch. Fantastic read as always
Didn't Timex like, sold watches at...was it like a dollar or something during the time? Or was that a decade later? Cheap indeed. Timex was squeezing a lot of watch makers in America before they either immigrated to Switzerland or held on until the quartz wave killed them dead.
Not quite a dollar. "Dollar watches" were more along the line of Ingersoll and Westclox in the very early 20th Century. But cheap:
Timex deserves credit for designing a movement from the ground up to be as cheap and durable as possible, then tooling up to build them in huge quantities to keep the price down. Most other companies cost cut movements that were built using traditional methods, which was like squeezing blood from a stone. As the death of Elgin shows, there's only so much that could be done when facing that kind of price pressure without significant innovation and investment.
But you can go back even further and consider Elgin a good example of the American watch industry failing to innovate in broad terms. The American brands were built around pocket watches and adapted to wrist watches slowly. While the Swiss made movements progressively smaller, more efficient, and more feature packed, most American brands either moved slowly (Hamilton, which produced fine hand wound no date movements in the US until 1969) or didn't innovate at all (Elgin, Gruen, etc), with both importing stuff from the Swiss as they became increasingly uncompetitive. Bulova was the only US brand that really kept up with the Swiss in terms of quality and design, while Timex broke the mold and built an unassailable advantage at the low end of the market with mass produced pin-lever movements. Quartz killed, or nearly killed, them all eventually, but the US movement manufacturing was more or less dead and buried by then, having been killed by economics.
I was following you up to "failure to innovate." Broadly speaking, American companies took off nearly half a decade from domestic production of watches during World War II. Elgin stopped making watches and made timers and fuses instead. Same with Waltham.
Meanwhile, the Swiss industry, insulated by their neutrality kept investing and innovating. The Swiss were able to sell to anyone with cash and they flooded the market with inexpensive movements. That is what spurred Hamilton and Bulova to go "electric". Electric watches were the future, just not for those companies. They were electric without being quartz.
The "failure to innovate" argument also fails to take into account the rising cost of labor. Elgin tried to keep labor costs down by moving to a non-union state, South Carolina. Timex moved much of its production to Hong Kong (and Europe), which had some of the lowest labor costs in the world. Hamilton bought Buren so that it had access to a source of cheap Swiss movements. It was much cheaper to produce movements in Switzerland due to lower labor costs and Swiss government intervention.
Facing these headwinds, I am not sure that Elgin could have innovated out of this situation. Gruen and Waltham both had been bankrupted much earlier, in 1958. In 1969 Hamilton moved to Switzerland. Timex and Bulova hung on. Bulova started switching from Swiss movements to Japanese movements.
It is also not fair to say that because Timex and Bulova were still around in 1975 meant that they innovated anymore than anyone else. There is always a bit of randomness in who makes it and who doesn't. Timex is around today, not due to their ugly mechanical movements, but due to the success of their earliest popular quartz watch the Ironman. But, that is a story for another day.
I was following you up to "failure to innovate." Broadly speaking, American companies took off nearly half a decade from domestic production of watches during World War II. Elgin stopped making watches and made timers and fuses instead. Same with Waltham.
Meanwhile, the Swiss industry, insulated by their neutrality kept investing and innovating. The Swiss were able to sell to anyone with cash and they flooded the market with inexpensive movements. That is what spurred Hamilton and Bulova to go "electric". Electric watches were the future, just not for those companies. They were electric without being quartz.
The "failure to innovate" argument also fails to take into account the rising cost of labor. Elgin tried to keep labor costs down by moving to a non-union state, South Carolina. Timex moved much of its production to Hong Kong (and Europe), which had some of the lowest labor costs in the world. Hamilton bought Buren so that it had access to a source of cheap Swiss movements. It was much cheaper to produce movements in Switzerland due to lower labor costs and Swiss government intervention.
Facing these headwinds, I am not sure that Elgin could have innovated out of this situation. Gruen and Waltham both had been bankrupted much earlier, in 1958. In 1969 Hamilton moved to Switzerland. Timex and Bulova hung on. Bulova started switching from Swiss movements to Japanese movements.
It is also not fair to say that because Timex and Bulova were still around in 1975 meant that they innovated anymore than anyone else. There is always a bit of randomness in who makes it and who doesn't. Timex is around today, not due to their ugly mechanical movements, but due to the success of their earliest popular quartz watch the Ironman. But, that is a story for another day.
The failure to innovated started before WW2 during the shift to wrist watches from pocket watches. Most American brands went straight to Swiss movements at that point, instead of developing their own (Hamilton and Bulova being notable exceptions). War production during WW2 only put them farther behind the curve (which Hamilton never caught up from). Bulova kept improving their movements and making some of them in the US into the late 60s, and Timex engineered their movements from scratch to stay cost effective. They were the only US brands making their own movements by the quartz crisis because they adapted early (in Bulova's case) or decisively (in Timex's case, and Bulova's to a lesser extent with the Accutron) to stay competitive.
Elgin moving their production to South Carolina to cut costs was probably 20 years too late - maybe even 30 since they committed to Swiss movements rather than making their own.
Again, they don’t last forever and are not as serviceable. Every pin-pallet had shock protection of some sort in the end, that’s nothing special. Perhaps we should also celebrate the fact they could make a ticking sound as well?
The tag-line doesn’t mean anything, pin-pallets are not good movements when compared to something like an AS, ETA, or an FHF despite what Oris could do with them (cal.625).
Regardless of how successful they were, vintage Timex are not good value for money. I can pick up Swiss-jobbers for less than a vintage Timex.
That's not the point. The point is cost effectiveness and competitiveness at the time. Timex made a good enough movement at the time for way cheaper than the Swiss brands with conventional construction did. They competed on price and being good enough, which is why they dominated the low end of the market and killed brands like Elgin.
The failure to innovated started before WW2 during the shift to wrist watches from pocket watches. Most American brands went straight to Swiss movements at that point, instead of developing their own (Hamilton and Bulova being notable exceptions). War production during WW2 only put them farther behind the curve (which Hamilton never caught up from). Bulova kept improving their movements and making some of them in the US into the late 60s, and Timex engineered their movements from scratch to stay cost effective. They were the only US brands making their own movements by the quartz crisis because they adapted early (in Bulova's case) or decisively (in Timex's case, and Bulova's to a lesser extent with the Accutron) to stay competitive.
Elgin moving their production to South Carolina to cut costs was probably 20 years too late - maybe even 30 since they committed to Swiss movements rather than making their own.
Your comment takes for granted that developing one's own movements is an unalloyed good and is the only reason for the survival of a company.
Timex had the lowest markups of any watch so it could be sold in drugstores. Where they made their real money was with their partnership with Polaroid. They were the exclusive manufacturer of Polaroid cameras at the height of Polaroid's popularity. On the watch side of the business they had reduced their workforce by over 90% by the mid-seventies. Polaroid, not cheap in-house movements, is what separated Timex from their competitors.
That's not the point. The point is cost effectiveness and competitiveness at the time. Timex made a good enough movement at the time for way cheaper than the Swiss brands with conventional construction did. They competed on price and being good enough, which is why they dominated the low end of the market and killed brands like Elgin.
…which no one is arguing with, but, they are still poor… marketing be damned look at the ad, it’s a big bag of wasps. Good enough doesn’t mean good.
I’m also very confused - you know they are not as good as other movements, yet you seem to be upset when this is pointed out?
Your comment takes for granted that developing one's own movements is an unalloyed good and is the only reason for the survival of a company.
Timex had the lowest markups of any watch so it could be sold in drugstores. Where they made their real money was with their partnership with Polaroid. They were the exclusive manufacturer of Polaroid cameras at the height of Polaroid's popularity. On the watch side of the business they had reduced their workforce by over 90% by the mid-seventies. Polaroid, not cheap in-house movements, is what separated Timex from their competitors.
Developing one's own movement now, in a market with lots of well developed suppliers with long standing designs, may not make sense. Even in the 1960s building in-house wasn't necessarily economically viable assuming you were starting from scratch.
In the 20s and 30s when wrist watches were new, Swiss industrialization was still developing, and controlling your own costs and quality through vertical integration was common in industry. Hell, this is what happened in the auto industry at the same time. Car brands went from buying mechanical parts from third parties to building everything possible in house to take advantage of economies of scale and closer control of cost. Bulova did the same with watches. If other American brands invested in their own wristwatch movements at that point, they wouldn't have needed the Swiss, or wouldn't have needed them as quickly (Hamilton, Bulova), but they didn't. They were forced to compete in a crowded market with the same movements and cost structure as everyone else, They missed the chance to get ahead in the market so when the economics turned against them or their marketing couldn't differentiate them from the rest of the market, they died.
Talk about the 70s isn't really the topic here. The focus is the 50s and 60s where a lot of American brands rolled over and died, while cheap and effective Timex movements danced all over their corpses. The Quartz Crisis/Revolution was as bad for Timex as it was for everyone else - maybe worse once the race to the bottom in quartz prices started - but they dominated the low end of the market in the 60s and early 70s before quartz got cheap.
Developing one's own movement now, in a market with lots of well developed suppliers with long standing designs, may not make sense. Even in the 1960s building in-house wasn't necessarily economically viable assuming you were starting from scratch.
In the 20s and 30s when wrist watches were new, Swiss industrialization was still developing, and controlling your own costs and quality through vertical integration was common in industry. Hell, this is what happened in the auto industry at the same time. Car brands went from buying mechanical parts from third parties to building everything possible in house to take advantage of economies of scale and closer control of cost. Bulova did the same with watches. If other American brands invested in their own wristwatch movements at that point, they wouldn't have needed the Swiss, or wouldn't have needed them as quickly (Hamilton, Bulova), but they didn't. They were forced to compete in a crowded market with the same movements and cost structure as everyone else, They missed the chance to get ahead in the market so when the economics turned against them or their marketing couldn't differentiate them from the rest of the market, they died.
Talk about the 70s isn't really the topic here. The focus is the 50s and 60s where a lot of American brands rolled over and died, while cheap and effective Timex movements danced all over their corpses. The Quartz Crisis/Revolution was as bad for Timex as it was for everyone else - maybe worse once the race to the bottom in quartz prices started - but they dominated the low end of the market in the 60s and early 70s before quartz got cheap.
I really can't follow your logic: Timex did this great thing with cheap movements in the 1950's and 1960's. If Elgin had done something innovative in the 1920's or 1930's they would have staved off bankruptcy forty years later.
In the 1920's and 1930's Elgin, Waltham and Hamilton made their own movements. Those movements were as good as any in the world. What are you suggesting that they didn't do? Bulova and Gruen mostly imported Swiss movements. Jaro proved that making your own movements was financially difficult in the United States of the 1960's. They lasted only a few years.
And contrary to your point, what happened in the early 1970's had a direct relation to what happened immediately before. Timex did not "dance on their corpses". Timex was buoyed by other business investments. Elgin and Waltham had each spun off profitable subsidiaries which are still around today, just not making watches. Timex survived, but just barely. Kudos to them. Yes, they dominated the low end of the market in many countries, that is not in dispute.
Perhaps, you think that we should celebrate Timex. Write a post and contribute your thoughts on the matter. At this point your comments are just shifting the goal posts in an argument where most of us agree.
Great read, thank you!
Great post (and lots of great comments).
Love your write up, man!
You make a brilliant point: It is fascinating to look back in time, and to see what contemporaneous reporting was fixated on. Today, we look back, and we're utterly mystified. "How could they not have seen X coming???" And, yet, I'm 100% positive that 10 years from now, I'll look back and say, "How in the world did I get blindsided by that?"
Interesting anecdotes... y2k was a favourite. I was in uni then and I'm not sure many computer scientists believed it but the strength of conviction in mass consumed media probably made them reticent to say.
Japan was never really going to dominate the world economy. They had the work ethic and could (still can) develop the tech but I don't think they had the numbers. China, on the other hand...
Interesting anecdotes... y2k was a favourite. I was in uni then and I'm not sure many computer scientists believed it but the strength of conviction in mass consumed media probably made them reticent to say.
Japan was never really going to dominate the world economy. They had the work ethic and could (still can) develop the tech but I don't think they had the numbers. China, on the other hand...
You know, the history of doomsday-ism is truly fascinating. I would go into Mathus and all the modern-day Malthusian movements, but I'm sure that would get me banned! 😜
Maybe it's safest to stick to economics and GDP? People don't seem to get that worked up over GDP figures?
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/china-has-few-options-revive-lagging-economic-growth#:~:text=Separately%2C%20PIIE%20projects%20that%20the,some%20compounded%20by%20policy%20mistakes.
Here's a chart of per capita GDP...
China has a GDP per capita of $12,556.
Notice something about every economy in that chart? They're all incredibly open and free economies. There's something about economic and social freedom that ensures that you can do information and services!
So, until and unless China becomes a beacon of freedom and free speech, I doubt they're going to take over the world!
You know, the history of doomsday-ism is truly fascinating. I would go into Mathus and all the modern-day Malthusian movements, but I'm sure that would get me banned! 😜
Maybe it's safest to stick to economics and GDP? People don't seem to get that worked up over GDP figures?
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/china-has-few-options-revive-lagging-economic-growth#:~:text=Separately%2C%20PIIE%20projects%20that%20the,some%20compounded%20by%20policy%20mistakes.
Here's a chart of per capita GDP...
China has a GDP per capita of $12,556.
Notice something about every economy in that chart? They're all incredibly open and free economies. There's something about economic and social freedom that ensures that you can do information and services!
So, until and unless China becomes a beacon of freedom and free speech, I doubt they're going to take over the world!
Wow. That is a very eloquent and persuasive argument you have laid our. Much impressed.
I can't do the same, not even close, but I will point out a few things.
GDP is in my humble opinion a terrible measure if how well a country is doing or is likely to do... ireland is a great example of this. It is essentially a banana republic. Then this comment was amusing: "Notice something about every economy in that chart? They're all incredibly open and free economies"; with Qatar in the list? Like really? Beyond that I think we in the west like to believe certain myths about the state of the world. How open are European and North American markets, really, to producers in Africa and Asia when the Middle man isn't a western organisation? I could write a lot about that but this probably isn't the forum. Look at European trade policies to get an idea. That is beside the point.
Then while i agree that agriculture to industrial generally leads to a short period high growth I'm not sure the wholesale move to information and services is necessarily progress or sustainable. The UK moved to information and services (mostly financial services) and as a result is now at the mercy of Russia since the latter invaded Europe's food basket. Leaving the EU is also going to hit our financial services industry...
The big problem with shifting your economy to information and services, in my humble opinion, is that this is the most easily replicated industry. It requires no land resources or huge infrastructure investment and the only cost in human resources really is education. Vietnam has built a competitive IT industry on the back of very little.
Tiktok recently superceded Google as the most visited site. Apple has been superceded by Samsung and will definitely be overtaken by Huawei especially since apple relies on Chinese companies to make its products. Wechat is the world's largest standalone communications app.
Like I said Japan never really had the critical mass. China (and India) do. Nothing lasts forever and western domination of the world economy cannot be sustained in the face of demographics (check out how many engineers those two countries pump out each year).
Civilisation is thousands of years old and in that time we have witnessed all types of dominant cultures. Some have been open and Liberal like persia others have been centralised and rigid like the Romans. I don't think the ideology is that important in historic terms.
That is probably too much non-watch talk 😊
That is probably too much non-watch talk 😊
The most free economies no longer produce watches in large quantities. Just to bring it back around.
The most free economies no longer produce watches in large quantities. Just to bring it back around.
Well played sir!