The Elgin National Watch Company was founded in 1864 as the National Watch Company in Elgin Illinois. Watches under the names Elgin and Lord Elgin were sold by the company. The company produced the only self winding (automatic) wristwatch movements ever made in the United States.
Elgin mass produced high quality pocket watches, wrist watches and watch parts. Back then watches were made mostly by hand and new parts could be fixed by experts. Elgin never made the very highest quality watches in the world, nor did they make the very cheapest, but together with Waltham (The American Watch Company), they dominated the vast middle ground of the watch market. Elgin-branded watches created after 1964 have no connection to Elgin Watch Company.
Today, collecting Elgin watches is quite popular. Vintage Elginwristwatches that are in excellent condition and fully serviced are being sold to collectors. Because Elgin produced so many watches and produced so many spare parts, they can still be easily bought and fixed, so even a 100 year old Elgin can be used, with care, on a daily basis. While mechanical watches can't compete with quartz watches for accuracy, there is something about having a watch that ticks that a quartz watch just can't replace.
Currently some companies are using the name of the Elgin watches to market replica watches. With brand rights or even without them they are selling watches that are exact copies. These should not be confused with original Elgin watches.
