Who was BW Raymond?
Rather than make up new text about the Elgin Watch Company, I’ll quote from Wayne Schlitt’s excellent Elgin National Watch Company web site (click to visit): Elgin was founded in 1864, right as the civil war was coming to an end. Their first pocketwatch, an 18 sized B W Raymond railroad grade watch, was finished in 1867 and over the next 100 years, they went on to produce about 60 million watches Elgin was originally called the “National Watch Company”, but in 1874, they changed their name to the “Elgin National Watch Company” because that was what most of the watch trade and public was calling them. They kept that name until the mid 1960’s when they got out of producing watches and changed their name to the “Elgin National Industries”. Elgin was founded on the idea of mass producing high quality watches using machine made, interchangeable parts. Up until around 1850, watches were made mostly by hand, which meant that if a part broke, you had to find someone with the tools and skill to
