Ingersoll

Ingersoll, the oldest American watch brand, has become a quintessentially British icon. Today it is sold in 39 countries worldwide. Ingersoll continues to offer traditionally styled quality automatic and quartz watches at £130.00 to £200.00.

Ingersoll started in 1880 when 21 year old Robert Hawley Ingersoll and his brother Charles Henry started a mail order business in New York City selling low-cost items such as rubber stamps. The company was called at this time R H Ingersoll & Bro. The first watches were introduced into the catalogue in 1892, supplied by the Waterbury Clock Company.

In 1896 Ingersoll introduced the "Yankee" watch priced at $1.00. It was cheaply mass produced from stamped parts and without jewels so that it would be affordable to everyone. They were producing 8,000 per day by 1899, and started advertising that 10,000 dealers carried their "dollar watch." Over twenty years nearly forty million of these watches were sold, and Ingersoll coined the phrase "The watch that made the dollar famous!" Theodore Roosevelt mentioned that during his hunting trip in Africa he was described as "the man from the country where Ingersoll was produced."

In 1905 Robert sailed to England and introduced the "Crown" pocket watch for 5 shillings, which was the same value as $1 at the time. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Ingersoll Limited was launched as a British public company. Ingersoll’s fame spread far and wide.

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