# Dollar watch

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{{Short description|Inexpensive pocket watch developed in the late 19th- to early 20th-century}}
{{One source|date=March 2022}}
thumb|right|A Waterbury dollar watch
thumb|right|A dollar watch featuring a replacement crystal and dial; the dial, like most all dollar watches, is paper.

A '''dollar watch''' was a [pocket watch](/source/pocket_watch) or later, a [wristwatch](/source/wristwatch), that sold for about one [US dollar](/source/US_dollar).

==History of development==
Attempts to make a watch that could be sold for as little as a dollar began in the 1870s.<ref name=Bruton186 /> By 1880, the Waterbury Watch Company, not to be confused with the [Waterbury Clock Company](/source/Waterbury_Clock_Company), had lowered costs to the point where they could sell their so-called long wind watch for $3.50.<ref name=Bruton186 /> In the early 1890s the [Ingersoll Watch Company](/source/Ingersoll_Watch_Company) started selling a Waterbury Clock Company clock in a watch case for $1.50.<ref name=Bruton186>{{cite book |last=Bruton |first=Eric |date=2000 |title=The History of Clocks & Watches |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |pages=186–189 |isbn=0316853550}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/guide/trade-names/yankee | title=Yankee Pocket Watch Info by Ingersoll Watch Co }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.timesticking.com/the-watch-that-made-the-dollar-famous/ | title=The Watch That Made the Dollar Famous | date=25 June 2020 }}</ref>

The one dollar price was reached in 1896 when Ingersoll introduced a watch called the Yankee, setting its price at $1. This made it the cheapest watch available at the time, and the first watch to be priced at one dollar.<ref name="Cutmore">Cutmore, M. "Watches 1850–1980". David & Charles, Devon, UK. 2002.</ref>

Later, Western Clock ([Westclox](/source/Westclox)) in 1899 and the E. Ingraham Company also began manufacturing them. Dollar watches were practical, mass-produced timepieces intended to be as inexpensive as possible. 

Features of dollar watches were their simple, rugged design, movement (usually with a [pin-pallet escapement](/source/pin-pallet_escapement), although sometimes with [duplex escapements](/source/Escapement)) which has either no jewels or just one jewel, width of about eighteen size ({{convert|2|in}}), and sale price of about a dollar from 1892 until the mid-1950s. Many other companies made them, with literally hundreds of names on the dials. From around 1905, Ingersoll started selling their watches in the UK as [Crown](/source/Crown_(British_coin)) watches.<ref name=Bruton186 />

To keep costs down, the watches were often sold in flimsy cardboard boxes, which are now highly collectible.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Companies}}
* [List of watch manufacturers](/source/List_of_watch_manufacturers)
* [Coin watch](/source/Coin_watch)
* [Counterfeit watch](/source/Counterfeit_watch)
* [Mystery watch](/source/Mystery_watch)

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

Category:Watches

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Dollar watch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_watch) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_watch?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.