With a patina’d black dial with super-cool numerals that just scream “vintage,” this 1953 Elgin tank really stands out. The in-house 673 manual movement was designed and manufactured in the USA, and increasing rarity at the time as Swiss movements were taking over the industry. The 10K RGP case has wear befitting a 70+ year old watch, but still looks great.

The Elgin 626 is a neat little USA-made movement from the late 1940s designed specifically to power the sub-second tank-style watches popular at the time. However, the horologist who designed this movement clearly must have been a bit bored with the lack of complications, because they seemingly went out of their way to add some truly strange design features. In this post we will explore these oddities.