One of the many contract grades that Illinois produced in their fifty-plus-year run was the Washington Watch Co, made for Chicago mail-order giant Montgomery Ward, which was founded in the early 1870s by traveling salesm…

Many people appreciate the years of trial and error, the hard work by lantern light, the failures and triumphs, the mesmerizing patterns, the fantastic precision, and the incredible history found in these mechanical work…

Watch hands don’t simply fall off when installed properly, but they could get snagged and break if the crystal is missing. This is especially true of the minute hand, which is the longest and sits above the others. If yo…

Aurora was another factory that half-heartedly complied with Webster Ball’s new standards in the early 1890s. Fewer than a dozen 18-size variants are known to exist in both open-face and hunter and Aurora was apparently …

Here’s an exceptional 24-jewel Hamilton 920, sent in by an excellent customer in Connecticut.

The Pennsylvania Special was a private label found in several brands, most notably Illinois and Waltham, ordered by jeweler H M Jacobson & Son of Philadelphia. Illinois made several variants in jewel counts ranging from …

People like to use vintage pocket watches as wall clocks, displaying them vertically and winding them daily, but watches were designed to be carried. The accuracy of these antiques is an average of twelve hours in a pock…

In keeping with what appears to be a strategy of pairing fancy dials with lesser movements comes this all-original two-tone Seth Thomas Model 9 in the famous Fried Egg pattern. This common 7-jewel Grade 37 is from my col…

Rockford was one of only three American companies to produce wind-indicators in quantity, with the other two being Elgin and Waltham (Hamilton put that feature in their marine chronometers). Rockford made several variant…

Most of the smaller sizes that are sent here for restoration are family heirlooms, usually from someone’s great-grandmother, but any collector who concentrates on these smaller pieces can find some impressive examples. W…