Ingersoll watches (info please)

[pastilence666]

Hi guys,

want to enquiry about this watch, i cant find much online, so i guess i will come to you for some enlighten.

i did some research in google, and some said good and bad, design wise is very vintage (german design?) which of course copy a model of panerai and others a little bit. and machine wise is china made automatic, again some said good and bad.

im wearing kenneth cole watch, which mentioned china movement, but i don't encounter something bad, never break down, other than every few month i need to adjust the timing as it is goes faster by 10 to 15 minutes, about every 2 month plus, everyday usage, but im alright with that.

wanted to buy seiko monster, but i saw ingersoll design is more appealing, but seiko is japan and ingersoll is china, so i know i should go for seiko, but somehow, my hand itchy for ingersoll.

help me guys, please.

thanks a lot in advance for everyone, im just a noob in watch world.
and for moderator, if this post in a wrong section, by all mean please move it to the right place.

Thanks again.

[Starlight]

Ingersoll

http://www.ingersoll-watches.co.uk/

Mustafa selling....

[sportee]

Its a nice watch to have. The design are generally classic and the brand did have a history. The movement though, heard its from China. But not all china movements are lousy. The complication of some of the watches are fantastic. Alll in all, a value for money watch.

some facts on the history of Ingersoll:

The Ingersoll Watch Company grew out of a mail order business (R H Ingersoll & Bro) started in New York City in 1882 by 21 year old Robert Hawley Ingersoll and his brother Charles Henry. The company initially sold low-cost items such as rubber stamps. The first watches were introduced into the catalogue in 1892, supplied by the Waterbury Clock Company.

In 1896 Ingersoll introduced the "Yankee" watch priced at $1.00. It was cheaply mass produced from stamped parts and without jewels so that it would be affordable to everyone. They were producing 8,000 per day by 1899, and started advertising that 10,000 dealers carried their "dollar watch." Over twenty years nearly forty million of these watches were sold, and Ingersoll coined the phrase "The watch that made the dollar famous!" Theodore Roosevelt mentioned that during his hunting trip in Africa he was described as "the man from the country where Ingersoll was produced."

In 1904 Ingersoll opened a store in London, England. In 1905 Robert sailed to England and introduced the "Crown" pocket watch for 5 shillings, which was the same value as $1 at the time. These were made by a British subsidiary, Ingersoll Ltd, initially assembled from imported parts, and later made entirely in their London factory. These watches were made until the late 1920s, after the American parent company had collapsed.

Ingersoll bought the Trenton Watch Company in 1908, and the New England Watch Company in 1914. By 1916, the company was producing 16,000 watches per day in 10 different models. In 1917 they produced another popular watch with 7 jewels called the "Reliance". In 1919 Ingersoll developed a watch with the so called "night design", the "Radiolite" with luminous dial.

Bankruptcy
Ingersoll Watch Company went bankrupt in 1921 during the recession that followed World War I. It was purchased by Waterbury Clock Company in 1922 for $1,500,000. Waterbury Clock sold the London-based arm of the Ingersoll watch business, Ingersoll, Ltd., to its Board of Directors in 1930, making it a wholly British-owned enterprise.[1] In 1944 Waterbury Clock Company was renamed United States Time Corporation (now Timex Group USA, Inc.) and continued producing Ingersoll watches in the United States through the 1950s.

Anglo-Celtic Company Ltd
After the Second World War, the British company, Ingersoll Ltd, joined with Smiths Industries Ltd and Vickers Armstrong in setting up the Anglo-Celtic Company Ltd on the Ynyscedwyn estate. This was on the outskirts of the village of Ystradgynlais, near Swansea, Wales. The first model featured the same movement as the earlier British Ingersolls, now designated calibre PY. These watches were branded Ingersoll Triumph and Smiths Empire. Ingersoll Ltd pulled out of the venture in 1969. Between 1946 and 1980, when the factory closed down, over 30,000,000 watches were made, and exported to 60 different countries throughout the world.

Ingersoll Since 1892
During their years of tireless creative urge. Robert and Charles Ingersoll, the founders of one of the oldest American watch manufacturers established many milestones in the field of developing pocket watches and wrist watches.

They followed an ambitious plan to on one hand, offer watches to the broad public and on the other hand to offer reasonable prices whilst maintaining real quality. In 1892 thanks to Henry Ford they succeeded to develop an automated production first for pocket watches and later for wrist watches. Alongside the existing handcrafted production of Ingersoll watches an automated production of watches was established.

With high quality and precision, at the very reasonable price of 1 dollar (which was a days wages at the time) the so-called "Dollar-Watch" was born. The Dollar-Watch became so popular that about 1 million of these watches were produced. Even Theodore Roosevelt mentioned that during his hunting trip in Africa he was described as "the man from the country where Ingersoll was produced".

The success of the "Dollar Watch" from then on also called the "Yankee" was amazing. The Ingersoll brothers had to adapt to increasing production and increasing production plants. Meanwhile, the product range had been expanded by some technical pioneering refinements. Also the production of the smallest pocket watch ever seen had begun.

In 1919 the Ingersoll brothers developed the first watch with the so called "night design", the "Radiolite" with luminoious dial.

An old Ingersoll ad:

[johnfish]

There was an articles mention "ingersoll" timepiece was unearth from the "Sink of Titanic" I believe plenty of America made watches were found in that wreck under.