Welcome!

This is your source for service and repair of vintage Elgin pocketwatches! Learn about how fine mechanical timepieces work, the history of the once mighty American watch industry, and all about your antique Elgin watch.

Interested in vintage watches but not sure where to start? There's a series of posts at the Elgintime blog just for that. Take a look here.

What's inside a watch? Follow along with vintage watch repairs and service, click here!

Need a vintage pocketwatch serviced? Have any questions? Feel free email me and tell me about your watch, or request more information about repairs here.

There is also an Elgin FAQ that might help with general questions.

The Elgintime blog covers watches, watchmaking, watchmaking tools, projects, history, vintage ephemera and more!

Projects On The Bench Right Now

Follow the elgintime pluspora for daily updates on vintage watches being serviced and repaired, here. Watches all have a job number, so if your watch is in the queue, you can check anytime to see what's currently being worked on. To see more, more than watches that is, my personal profile is here. The pluspora site does not require a login to browse so feel free.

The Elgin National Watch Company Production Records

Each American made Elgin movement (the "movement" is the "watch works" inside the case) has a serial number, and Elgin left behind pretty good records of these.

This online database for Elgin Watch Company products can tell you a great deal of information about your watch, based on the serial number of the movement, especially for older pocketwatches. The Elgin company is gone, but it left us with factory records of the ranges of the serial numbers engraved on their movements, and the attributes of the movements included in those production runs. The information includes the year, size, grade, jeweling, finish and more. Look up Elgin watch serial numbers here.The original information in the old records was loaded with exceptions, caveats and out right errors. I make corrections to the data available today online almost every month based on actual watches. There's a lot to do! For a rough idea, there's also a simpler table of the serial numbers and production years here, which shows the approximate year only. This information is much less refined, but will yield a good ballpark answer.

All about the Elgin National Watch Company

Learn about what was once one of the country's largest industrial concerns, and the special place in the history of American industrialization that this once mighty watch company occupies.

There is also this older account of the very beginnings of the company here (written in 1888)

The Elgintime Watch Museum

There is a little of everything here including photos, articles from early horological publications, vintage advertising, and of course lots of watches.

Elgin Clocks?

Strictly speaking Elgin didn't make clocks. Or did they?

Technical information

Here is a mixed collection of references and historical information about vintage watches. Mostly Elgin is covered, but some other American watch companies are represented too.

More...

For something different, here's my personal blog

Feeling lucky? Try assorted Links, for a grab bag!

@Elgintime is also on Instagram!