Hello Stacie,
Thank you for sending in your pocket watch to mearto.com for an appraisal. I shall try to help you with that today.
TITLE:
Gent’s 16s, 14k yellow gold, pendant wound and pendant set, savonette, hunting case pocket watch, grade 386, made by the Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin, Illinois, USA, circa 1911.
DESCRIPTION:
Case – Size 16, four leaf, engine turned, solid polished 14k gold hunting case pocket watch with guilloche outer covers engraved with foliate and floral designs. There is a suppressed ball fluted pendant and bow placed at the three position opposite the case hinge (savonette). The interior reveals that the case was made by the Keystone Watch Case Company of Philadelphia (see history). The cuvette over the movement is 14k gold without engraved decoration.
Dial – Triple sunk, round white enameled dial with Arabic hours, bar minute ring with red Arabic markers placed every five minutes, subsidiary seconds @6, steel Spade hands and the upper dial signed ‘Elgin’.
Movement – This is a nickel damascened split three quarter plate movement, the Grade 386, Model 6, Class 109, made by the Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin, Illinois, Serial number 15730557, made in 1911 in a run of 1000 such movements, 16s, 17 jewels both rubies and sapphires, some jewels in screw settings, pendant wound and pendant set, with double roller, bimetallic balance wheel, quick train, Moseley regulator, and Breguet hairspring, all properly signed and numbered.
Condition – Case – excellent. Dial – Excellent. Movement – Clean, original, genuine and functional.
HISTORICAL:
KEYSTONE WATCH CASE COMPANY:
In 1853 Randolf & Reese Peters were making watch cases in Philadelphia, employing James Boss in their movement department. In 1859 - J. Boss received a patent for "spinning up" cases made of "gold-filled" type material. That is, material made of a sheet of composition metal (usually brass) sandwiched between two thin sheets of gold. Boss formed cases by rolling sheet metal as opposed to the traditional method involving soldering and cutting. Rolling increased the molecule density of the metal. His patent, No. 23,820 of May 3, 1859, revolutionized the watch case industry by enabling the production of not only less expensive, but considerably stronger cases. ... Unlike gold washed cases, which were made using electroplating, cases produced by means of rolling had much harder gold surfaces and were thus less apt to wear. In 1871 Boss sold patent rights to John Stuckert of Philadelphia. By 1875 - T.B. Hagstoz & Charles N. Thorpe at 618 Chestnut St. Philadelphia purchased the "J. Boss" patent from the estate of John Stuckert. Hagstoz & Thorpe seems to have made only gold-filled cases using the J. Boss patented method. Orders increased so rapidly that larger quarters became necessary immediately. A new plant on Brown Street was erected. In 1877 the E. Tracy case company, a manufacturer of solid gold and silver watch cases, was acquired. n 1880 - the company moved to a six-story building on Nineteenth St., with an equal-size annex on Wylie St. between 1883 - 1885 - T.B Hagstoz withdrew from the company which became C.N. Thorpe Co. and shortly thereafter it was reorganized as the KEYSTONE WATCH CASE COMPANY. The firm was producing 1,500 cases per day by 1889. By merging with and purchasing other watch case and watch making companies Keystone, by 1911 was the largest watch case company in America.
COMPARABLES:
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/71602395_elgin-nat-l-watch-co-14k-yellow-gold-hunting-case (sold in 2019 for $900)
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/67365382_solid-14k-gold-elgin-national-pocket-watch-1895 (sold in 2019 for $1100)
I believe your gold pocket watch would sell on the auction market today for between $1000 and $1150.
I hope that this has been informative for you.
My best,
David