Ingersoll watch
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An Ingersoll watch is one of the inexpensive mass-market watches made by the Ingersoll Watch Company, whose dollar watches made personal timekeeping widely accessible. The company first sold a Waterbury-made precursor to the Yankee in 1892 for $1.50. (Smithsonian Magazine)
History and on-screen identification
Robt. H. Ingersoll & Bro. introduced the Yankee pocket watch in 1896 at one dollar; a 1903 advertisement sells it as the "Ingersoll Dollar Watch," with Yankee engraved on the dial.[1] The company later added radium-dialed Radiolite models; Christopher and the Clockmakers (1925) describes them as made for wartime legibility, and by 1920 Ingersoll was advertising the Yankee at $2.50 and a Yankee Radiolite above it.[2]
Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes wedges one under a car tyre in Chinatown; Heritage Auctions sold the crushed "silver-metal plated Ingersoll brand pocket watch" in 2018, naming no model. (Heritage Auctions)
References
- ↑ Ingersoll Dollar Watch advertisement, Everybody's Magazine IX(6), December 1903.
- ↑ "Give Ingersolls for Christmas", The Saturday Evening Post, 1920.
