Langendorf Pocket Serial Numbers

Instructions for using our serial number look-up tables

This page contains INSTRUCTIONS for using the serial number look-up tables that are found on many of our watch company history pages. The example below uses information from the American Waltham Watch Company, but that is just an example. You should consult the serial number table for the specific brand of watch movement you are trying to date by selecting a company from the menu on the left.

However, most of the top quality manufacture like chronometers, took years to finish, although they were assigned early serials numbers (say in the 2.500.000 serial range), and therefore deliveries were slower then many lower quality counterparts (already in the 3-5.000.000 serial range). Pocket Watch Serial Number Production List Please use the following tables to help determine the approximate age of your watch. Remove or open the back cover from your watch and look for a number engraved into the movement; this is the serial number for your watch, and by using it, you can find the closest years it was made on these tables.

Not all vintage watches can be dated using the serial number. Some American watch brands did not use a consistent series of serial numbers, but most of the big manufacturers did. Most vintage Swiss pocket watches did NOT have serial numbers and can't be dated by this method.

Langendorf Pocket Watch Serial Numbers

Can't find YOUR exact serial number in our lookup tables?

Enter your True product's serial number to view specific information pertaining to the cabinet. Date your IWC International Watch Company by serial number using this list of serial numbers production dates from 1880 until 1975 at Brittons Watches. Pocket Watch Data Base Research This webpage is designed to enable the user to rapidly access movement characteristics of 4 different American Pocket watch Manufacturers that are no longer in business, by serial number query entry.

Numbers

Many watch companies made hundreds of thousands of watches, and some companies made millions of watches! It would be impractical to list the individual serial numbers of EVERY watch made... that would make some really long pages! Our serial number tables list RANGES of serial numbers. So to determine when your watch was manufactured, you will need to find where your serial number fits within the range of numbers.

Serial number look-up example:

Let's say you have a Waltham watch with serial number 21,607,210 as shown in the photo below. Note that we're using the serial number from the watch movement, not from the watch case. Looking at the table of Waltham serial numbers (see example below), you can see that number 20,900,000 was made in 1917 and 21,800,000 was made in 1918 (marked in red in the table below). Since your serial number falls between those two numbers, you know that your watch was made in 1917 or 1918.

Not sure which serial number to use?

You must use the serial number from the MOVEMENT of the watch... the working part with the wheels and gears... not the serial number from the watch case. Cases and watches were often made by different companies and each usually has its own serial number. You usually have to take the back off the watch case to see the movement serial number which may appear anywhere on the watch movement.

Use the movement serial number. Do NOT use the case serial number!
This is an example only. Your movement serial number may not be in exactly the same location as the one in the photo, but you are looking for the serial number that is on the watch mechanism itself... not the serial number on the external case.

YearS/N
185250
1853400
18541000
18552500
18564000
18576000
185810,000
185915,000
186020,000
186130,000
186245,000
186365,000
1864110,000
1865180,000
1866260,000
1867330,000
1868410,000
1869460,000
1870500,000
1871540,000
1872590,000
1873680,000
1874730,000
1875810,000
1876910,000
18771,000,000
18781,150,000
18791,350,000
18801,500,000
18811,670,000
18821,835,000
18832,000,000
18842,350,000
18852,650,000
18863,000,000
18873,400,000
YearS/N
18883,800,000
18894,200,000
18904,700,000
18915,200,000
18925,800,000
18936,300,000
18946,700,000
18957,100,000
18967,450,000
18978,100,000
18988,400,000
18999,000,000
19009,500,000
190110,200,000
190211,100,000
190312,100,000
190413,500,000
190514,300,000
190614,700,000
190715,500,000
190816,400,000
190917,600,000
191017,900,000
191118,100,000
191218,200,000
191318,900,000
191419,500,000
191520,000,000
191620,500,000
191720,900,000
191821,800,000
191922,500,000
192023,400,000
192123,900,000
192224,100,000
192324,300,000

Langendorf Pocket Watch Serial Numbers

YearS/N
192424,550,000
192524,800,000
192625,200,000
192726,100,000
192826,400,000
192926,900,000
193027,100,000
193127,300,000
193227,550,000
193327,750,000
193428,100,000
193528,600,000
193629,100,000
193729,400,000
193829,750,000
193930,050,000
194030,250,000
194130,750,000
194231,050,000
194331,400,000
194431,700,000
194532,100,000
194632,350,000
194732,750,000
194833,100,000
194933,500,000
195033,560,000
195133,600,000
195233,700,000
195333,800,000
195434,100,000
195534,450,000
195634,700,000
195735,000,000
--
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This is an example using the Waltham serial number table. Be sure to use the table that is specific
to YOUR brand of watch when looking up your serial number.

Be sure to use the serial number on the watch movement (the mechanism).
Do not use the serial number from the watch case.

Elgin National Watch Company

In the spring of 1864 half a dozen ambitious Chicago businessmen decided that if Massachusetts could build a factory that built watches – Illinois could, too. Harper’s magazine summed their sentiment perfectly: “It was the genuine, audacious, self-reliant Western spirit.” By August of that year this consortium, including then-Chicago mayor Benjamin W. Raymond, purchased an abandoned farm 30 miles north of Chicago and built a watch factory there. After a year of designing and building the lathes and machines to achieve seemingly impossible levels of precision, a team of watchmakers and mechanical engineers produced their first pocket watch movement, named for mayor “B.W. Raymond.” The watch was exquisite: Elgin National Watch Company was born.

By 1910, word of Elgin’s obsession with precision had spread around the world. Elgin engineers built their own Observatory to maintain scientifically precise times in their watches. Later, their accurate “wristlet” watches proved to be vital to the WWI war effort, helping to fuel a craze back in the states for something called “The Wrist Watch.” By the opulent Jazz Age, if you weren’t displaying the exuberant symmetry of an Elgin wrist watch or carrying a svelte, distinctive Elgin pocket watch, then who were you? Elgin had helped define the American pocket watch as unsurpassed in “Railroad Accuracy.” By 1930, the post Civil War dream factory imagined by a handful of American entrepreneurs had produced 32 million “time machines.”

During World War II, all civilian manufacturing was halted and the company moved into the defense industry, manufacturing military watches, chronometers, fuses for artillery shells, altimeters and other aircraft instruments and sapphire bearings used for aiming cannons.

While their altruism was vital to the war effort, Elgin’s patriotism ironically opened an opportunity for the Swiss. By 1964, after a Mid-Century decade that saw the rise of the elite “Lord and Lady Elgin” series, the original Elgin factory closed. Over the course of a century, the dream factory just north of Chicago had produced half of all jeweled pocket and wristwatches manufactured in the United States.

Langendorf Pocket Watch Serial Numbers

The legendary Elgin watch has become woven into the fabric of America:

  • Robert Johnson, pre-eminent Delta bluesman, sang “She’s got Elgin movements from her head down to her toes” in his 1936 recording of “Walkin’ Blues”.
  • NBA Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor was named after the Elgin National Watch Company.
  • Daniel Beard’s sketches of an angel at the end of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court are based on the Elgin National Watch Company’s logo.
  • The Steeleye Span album Bloody Men contains a track titled “Lord Elgin”: ostensibly a love song, it is, in fact, about the Lord Elgin Watch.
  • Elgin Watch Company is referenced in the video game L.A. Noire, which takes place in post-World War II Los Angeles.