I wouldn’t be too surprised that, when you hear the name Ingersoll, you probably first think of Ingersoll Rand. After today’s post, however, I think you’ll find there’s a much more interesting brand with a similar name – Ingersoll Watches. Why would I bring this company up? We’ve actually got some of their watches slated for review – and there is enough of their history to talk about that it merited a stand-alone post.
Now, you might think, if you’ve not heard of the brand before that they’re some new kid on the block. To the contrary – they’ve actually been around since 1892, founded by Charles and Robert Ingersoll in the United States. With their company, they had one of the earliest (if not the earliest) automated assembly line for watch manufacture.
Those watches weren’t just some cheaply thrown together piece of junk. They developed a reputation for quality and precision; with the one dollar asking price (which was a days wage at the time), it quickly became known as “The Dollar Watch”. These watches were so popular, that even Teddy Roosevelt (you know, that larger-than-life President), while travelling in Africa, was referred to as being from the country of the dollar watch.
While they’re no longer an American company (they were purchased in the late 80s by British company Zeon), they embrace the history and lineage of the company, and as a result, they have an extremely impressive catalog (quite literally – it’s the largest watch catalog for a single company that I’ve ever seen).
Oh, and included in that family of watches? The Mickey Mouse watch – Ingersoll was actually the first company to produce one back in 1933. While we don’t have any of their current Disney watches for review (yet), we do have ones from their other lines slated for review, including Ingersoll, Swiss Eagle, and Original Penguin.
Tomorrow, we’ll have a review of the Ingersoll Apache.
