Indian Motorcycle Ingersoll Smith Vintage Advertising Pocket Watch

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Here is an old Ingersoll LTD advertising pocket watch, featuring Indian Motorcycles. It depicts the popular "America's Pioneer Motorcycle" theme that Indian used for years on their advertising. Removing the back cover shows the words "Made in Gt. Britain." Although their name does not appear on the watch, the easily identifiable movement, crown and stem identify this watch to be a Ingersoll LTD or Smith, size 16, which were British watch companies that were known to sell advertising and collector watches to various outlets, and together formed the Anglo Celtic Watch factory . Ingersoll LTD/Smith and affiliate companies, made over 30,000,000 watches, including many of the "character" watches of the time. A Wikipedia search for "Ingersoll watch" will give you the history of the company. Many Ingersoll/Smith size 16 watches and parts watches are listed each week on eBay, and parts are easily obtainable and interchangeable. This watch as found, is in good working condition for its age, but the crystal was so yellow and scratched from age and use it made the whole dial look yellow! I recently found on eBay a supply of the correct size crystals for my collection of Ingersoll watches, and have installed a new one on this watch, as shown in the first picture. However, I will include the original yellowed crystal as well, for its vintage value, as shown in the second picture. Also included is a short list of directions for caring for your vintage Ingersoll watch. Unlike many advertising watches of the time that had a paper dial, this vintage watch features a hard metal dial, with a single sunk second hand. This watch starts right up with a few winds and a gentle wave of the hand, and ticks on strongly to the end of its wind. The chrome case still has a good finish with no noticeable brassing. As I mentioned, it starts right up upon winding, but has not been checked for time keeping, and is offered for its collectible value, not for accurate time keeping. Please remember, any wind-up watch of this era and "dollar watch" quality should not be expected to keep accurate time, as compared to a jeweled railroad watch or a modern quartz watch. This vintage watch is being sold for its display or advertising value, not for accurate timekeeping, although these old Ingersolls can run amazingly well when properly serviced and oiled! When offering a similar watch several years ago, I received an interesting eBay message concerning the artwork on this watch. A gentleman from Canada was kind enough direct me to some information on artist James Henderson (1871-1951), "one of Saskatchewan's pre-eminent first generation artists." He was known to the Indians as "the man who paints the old men." He painted a picture in 1930, shown in the third to the last picture, that was used as the artwork for the "America's Pioneer" series of ads used by Indian in their advertising media, and which was used on this watch, and is now again used in the "new Indian" advertisements, as shown in the last picture. You can find much information on him by Googling his name. Further research is that the Indian chief depicted in this artwork by James Henderson is that of Chief Julius Standing Buffalo, of the Dakota Sioux. I have also since come across an interesting link from the website of the "new" Indian motorcycle company, now owned by Polaris Industries that again features this same artwork on a "revised" patch, and will add a picture at the end of the picture link. Research the history of the Anglo Celtic Watch factory to find out about Ingersoll Smith, the manufacturers of this watch. For those of you collectors who think you are purists, and prone to send nasty emails, yes, it's true, that the original company was known as Indian MOTOcycles. Indian MOTOcycles, however, made Indian MOTORcycles. I am also attaching a 1934 ad from Indian MOTOcycles that has both spellings on the same advertisement. That is the second to the last picture. If you are a collector of old motorcycle advertising items as I... read more

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