Elgin Tank - Art Deco Cut-Corner Case - The First American Year of the New Style - 1926

In the summer of 1925, Paris staged the exposition that gave Art Deco its name. Pavilions of glass and geometry filled the center of the city, Citroën strung the Eiffel Tower with two hundred thousand lights, and sixteen million people walked through to see what the modern world was going to look like. America was not among the exhibitors. Herbert Hoover had declined the invitation, saying the country had nothing modern to show. American designers, buyers, and journalists sailed over anyway, and what they saw in Paris came home in their luggage.

Within a year the exposition's pieces were touring American museums, and the new geometry was turning up on everything from radio cabinets to theater marquees. The Elgin here was made in 1926, in the first year of that arrival, and it wears the style edge to edge: a tank case with its corners cut into an octagon, every line straight, nothing borrowed from the past. Elgin also cut it larger than most tanks of the day, and it sits on a modern wrist the way watches of this shape rarely do.

The dial is a warm parchment, ruled with a boxed minute track and bold stepped numerals, and the seconds sit at six inside their own small octagon, the case's cut corners repeated in miniature. The Elgin name is printed small below twelve and stays out of the way of the geometry.

The hands are the detail I keep coming back to. Each one is drawn as an open frame, a slender outline that widens into a pierced lozenge holding its original radium, then runs out to a point. I have not seen the pattern on another watch from these years, and if it has a name, I do not know it.

Behind the dial runs Elgin's grade 430, a movement of the small six-naught size, signed Elgin U.S.A., its serial placing it in 1926. It runs, with everything in working order. Its service history is unknown.

The case is 14k gold filled, made by Wadsworth, among the leading American case houses of the day, its band stepped in clean parallel lines that carry the geometry through the profile. The gold shows wear and tarnish at the corners and edges, the caseback carries the scratches of a long life, and the dial has toned and speckled with its age. For a watch in its hundredth year, it has come through in very good condition. It rides on a burgundy-brown strap in crocodile grain. All of it is in the photographs.

Terms: Please review all photos carefully as they are a part of the listing. This is a vintage timepiece. Accuracy, power reserve, and water resistance are not guaranteed. Vintage watches may require periodic service. Performance can vary with wear, temperature, and position.

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