Old Ingersoll

Posted in Watches on 05/18/2010 04:32 am by admin

Can anyone tell me about this old/antique pocket watch?

I'm pretty sure that it's a Smiths Empire watch, made in the 60's. The limited information I was able to obtain online indicated that it the "Made in Britain" tag on the bottom of the face indicated that it had probably been made usually in association with Ingersoll who had a stock share in Smiths.

Beyond that I know nothing about the watch, except that it's a wind up and functions perfectly. Not interested in any monetary value, just more interested in the history of the item and a more exact production date.

Pic: http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9637/smithswatch1960s.jpg

This is what's known as a dollar watch.

Basically, they were made in big quantities by companies like Ingersoll and Westclox. They used metal bearings rather than the more expensive jeweled bearings in better watches. They also used an imprecise pin-lever escapement, rather than the rather complicated, but very precise, lever escapement used in better watches.

They're called "dollar watches" because, when new, they were $1 or somewhere around that price.

Although inexpensive and not overly accurate, they were still durable and reliable. I have a couple of them, and, when properly regulated, will keep time to within a 5 minutes a day. Although that's not great(cheap 7 jewel American watches can do much better), it's still pretty impressive considering how small of an error it takes to throw off the timing of a mechanical watch by a huge amount.

I believe that Ingersoll stamped the production date into the top plate of the movement. Pop the back off, and it should be there somewhere.

That's certainly a fine looking watch. Monetary value isn't much(Ingersoll made over 100,000,000 watches), but it's an interesting piece of history and worth holding on to.