Expert: Melvin Mills - 9/22/2008

Question
My husbands father passed a couple of yrs ago and my husband just started to go through some of his things and found a watch that has "the boulevard" and right underneath it says Elgin. after too many hours on the internet I finally found out how to get to the inside and find the serial #'s unfortunately I forgot to write those down so I won't know until I see the watch again to find out what yr it was made. The question I have is about the case, on the inside of the case it says wadsworth referee 20 yr # 6261461 then we saw lots of other #'s handwritten on them
Ex: 16688S-16781S
P4865
P3472
2181AH
what in the world do they mean?

Answer
Ms. Michelle,

The 20 year refers to the years that the gold was guaranteed to last on the case without going through to the brass.  

The hand written numbers were put there by watchmakers who serviced the watch.  Many use numbers or initials so they knew when they sericed it last when they get it back.

Kind regards,

Melvin