Ladies’ 1931 Elgin 18k Gold & Diamond Cocktail Watch

Deco-era Elgin wristwatches are always satisfying to study and offer to our clients. After all, the Elgin Watch factory was the biggest watch factory in the world, with its own jewelling house, watch college, and observatory stretching across city block after city block in the little town of Elgin, Ill. This progressive company spared no expense in finding the most talented artists and case designers to come up with a look that would set their watches apart from and, ABOVE, the rest.

Elgin certainly achieved singular magnificence with this stunning ladies wire-lug cocktail watch. A perfect amalgam of Arts and Crafts, Deco and a hint of Victorian fancy, this mesmeric timepiece is highlighted by artistic expression: 14 high-grade mine-cut diamonds set in clever angular chase-work; framing a perfect silver or "platinum" tone dial. Such playful geometric elements, combined with hand-carved flourishes, were not just literal interpretations of the day's style – they were influences and definitions of what we now generally accept as Art Deco fashion.

Open the back of this exceptional timepiece and one will find its original high-grade 17 ruby-jewel mechanical movement cleaned, oiled and calibrated to keep time as it was intended, ready to faithfully usher its bearer through the evening. We will, of course, be happy to install a custom ribbon band and period buckle at no extra charge.

This solid 18k white gold work of horological art, produced a year after the "Crash" of the Great Depression, would have cost six month's salary of the typical – and uncharacteristically – employed during a time of 25 percent unemployment. It is a treasure reserved for the elite, for the wrist of a socialite or equally luring ingenue.

In a period Elgin presentation box and measuring approx. 31mm by 16mm, it is a perfect reflection of our clients: artistic and dazzling.