Hello Susan,
Thank you for sending in this very early Elgin wristwatch to mearto.com for an appraisal. I shall try to help you with that today.
TITLE:
Gent’s/Ladies, ‘0’size, gold filled nickel casing, manually wound and manually set, ‘Presentation’ wristwatch with mid-20th century expandable steel link band, Grade 298 movement, S/N 19171021, made by the Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin, Illinois, USA circa 1916.
DESCRIPTION:
Case: 31 mm diameter, round, gold plated/filled nickel, two leaf wristwatch with large fluted crown @3 (original), gold filled ‘wire’ lugs attached to a mid-20th century expandable steel watch band. The back-cover pops open and is marked by the casemaker on the inside, the Empress model made by the American Watch Case Company (a Canadian, Toronto based company that was bought out by the Keystone Watch Case Company of Philadelphia in 1903) The back cover contains an engraved gift Presentation, “F.G. Liscombe from Jubilee Orchestra, April 1916”. (See historic notes below)
Dial: Round white enameled dial with bold upright Arabic hours, open bar minutes with black dots placed every five minutes, sunken subsidiary seconds dial @6, steel Continental style spade hands and the upper dial marked, “Elgin”.
Movement: this is a gilt nickel, split three-quarter movement plate design, size ‘0’, the grade 298, Model 2, Class 116, made by the Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin Illinois with serial number 19171021, made in 1916 with seven jewels, in a run of 4000 such movements, manually wound and set from the large original fluted crown, going barrel with exposed ratchet and crown wheels, bimetallic balance wheel and plain index regulator to make the watch run faster or slower. The plates are properly signed and numbered by Elgin.
CONDITION:
Case – Good for its age, but a good deal of the gilt finish is already worn off the nickel or ‘Silveroid’ case (as Elgin referred to them). Silveroid was a white metal that consisted of any white metal (lead, tin, nickel, and others, all except there was no silver in it)
Dial: This is the problem area because there are hairline fractures of the dial @ the 28- and 30-minute markers. At the 45- and 47-minute markers as well as the 49 and 51 there are compound fractures spreading over that portion of the dial. Despite all these fractures they sit tightly together. The numbers have survived fairly well.
Movement: Original to this case, genuine but not functional.
HISTORY:
Jubilee Orchestras were rampant in the second half of the 19th century. The most famous examples were the Peace Jubilees conducted by Patrick Gilmore. However, Jubilee orchestras abounded inside many church orchestras across the world. Let me recap the most famous one in America for you:
~~1869 – Patrick S. Gilmore and the Boston Peace Jubilees
One of the first so-called "monster concerts" was held in Boston during a week in June of 1869. It was called a Grand National Peace Jubilee. It is not generally known that there were actually three of these large Peace Jubilees held in Boston in the later 19th century.
Thousands of musicians participated in the concerts of classical music from Europe and America with special invited guests, soloists and bands from different countries. This Peace Jubilee featured a military band and orchestra of 1,011 musicians, plus many soloists and members from 103 choral groups totaling over 10,000 singers. Also, several huge cannons used as sound effects for some of the music. It was one of the first and biggest "monster concerts" in the USA during the 19th century.
~~1872 – World's Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival
This second music festival took place in Boston and was organized to celebrate the end of the Franco-Prussian War in Europe. It was once again organized by Patrick Gilmore and took place in June of 1872. Known as the World's Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival, it featured over 1,000 musicians in the orchestra and approximately 20,000 in the chorus. One of the young violinists in the orchestra was
Edwin Arthur Jones from Stoughton, Massachusetts, who would later become a composer and have his orchestra. Among the special invited guests were two European composers, Franz Abt and Johann Strauss Jr., who premiered his new "Jubilee Waltz" for this event. There were also bands invited from England, Ireland, France and Germany, as well as the U.S. Marine Band.
~~1889 - Gilmore Anniversary Peace Jubilee Concerts
This festival was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the National Peace Jubilee twenty years earlier and like that one, this "Grand Anniversary Jubilee" took place in June. The dates were June 5-9, 1889 at the Mechanics Building in Boston. The performers included a 1,000-voice chorus from Boston choral organizations, re-union Jubilee Chorus of 1,000 voices, and a Children's Chorus of 1,000 voices from Boston Public Schools. The opening concert on June 5 began with the Overture to Richard Wagner's opera, "Tannhauser," by Gilmore's Band and included Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" and closed with the patriotic song, "My Country 'Tis of Thee."
ELGIN WRIST WATCHES – THE BEGINNING:
Elgin was founded in 1864, right as the civil war was coming to an end. The first watch Elgin made, 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 produced their first wristwatch around 1910, leading most other American watch companies by many years. The Swiss pioneered wristwatch manufacturing, with American firms entering the business only in the second decade of the 20th century, and Elgin in 1910 may have been the first to make a wristwatch. Up until World War I men considered the wristwatch a bit feminine. They had been made and worn by European ladies since circa 1880. During the Great War male soldiers found the wristwatch invaluable and the story grows from there.
PRICING:
Although these are early American wristwatches their value has never been terribly high. The presentation on the watch makes this much more interesting. The dial fractures keep the price rather low however. Many of these Elgins found their way up into Canada, and perhaps that is how you came to own such a piece. The originals traps were black cloth and then black leather. The high point that such watches realized in the market place was at least two decades ago when the best examples might bring $300-$400 at auction. Given the dial condition today at auction this watch would most likely sell in the range of $150-175 with a retail value about twice that.
Sorry about the pricing but at least you know you have one of the real early Elgin wristwatches, amongst the earliest men’s watch in America. And, hopefully you now understand what makes it tick, although this example is not able to tick today. Perhaps someday soon.
My best,
David

Dear Susan,
Thank you for contacting Mearto with your appraisal inquiry. So that I may best assist you, can you please upload a few better images:
(1) - The inside of the back cover (illegible to me in photo). Also, try to tell me what is engraved there.
(2) - The movement (illegible in photo). Also try to tell me what is engraved on the movement and the serial number.
You did a great job with the dial photo. That is the quality I need to do your appraisal.
Thanks,
David