Business: Wind-Up

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One day last week, in the Elgin Watch factory in Elgin, ILL., a brand-new watch was dropped into a boiling bath of nitrohydrochloric acid. In a few minutes all of the watch was dissolved except the jewels —and the mainspring. It was as bright, hard and flexible as ever.

By this acid test, Elgin National Watch Co. demonstrated its new spring, which it called the biggest thing in watchmaking since the introduction of jewel bearings in 1704. Mainsprings have been the source of about half of all watch troubles. Elgin bragged that its new spring, made of a nonmagnetic alloy, will eliminate almost all these troubles.

To test the spring, Elgin last year quietly sold more than 100,000 watches containing the new spring. So far not one has been returned for spring trouble.

Elgin hopes that the spring will help it recapture a big chunk of the $400,000,000-a-year U.S. watch business from the fiercely competitive Swiss. Under President Thomas Albert Potter, 63, Elgin has come a long way since he left Quaker Oats Co. in 1932 to take over the depression-sick company. By 1940 Elgin was the biggest U.S. watch company. But during the war, the three big U.S. jeweled watchmakers (the other two: Hamilton, Waltham) switched to war work. With them out of the business, the Swiss boosted their U.S. sales almost 300% to about 9,000,000 watches and movements a year.

The underselling Swiss have since held on to the biggest share of the domestic market. But Elgin may supply the new spring metal ("Elgiloy") to other watchmakers if they want it. Elgin believes it has enough bounce to put the U.S. on top again—and strength enough to keep it there.