Wristwatches · Wristwatch
Llinois Watch Co. 'Skyscraper'
- Maker / attribution
- Illinois (maker)
- Date
- 1933
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Wristwatch
- Stock no.
- 40992509
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Analog/Shift (40992509)
- Catalogue title (original)
- llinois Watch Co. 'Skyscraper' (English)
View the source record (dealer listing) ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Catalogued by Analog/Shift (dealer), New York (stock number 40992509), this is a wristwatch by Illinois, dated 1933. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Wristwatches collection. The record is illustrated with 6 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — Analog/Shift
An elegant outlier from America’s golden age of watchmaking, this Illinois “Skyscraper” distills Art Deco confidence into a compact, beautifully resolved wristwatch. Housed in a stepped 14K white gold case, its gently curved silhouette immediately places it in the 1930s moment (dating to 1933 to be exact)—when geometry softened, lines became architectural, and watches began to think like design objects. The dial is the star. Alongside the stepped case, the dial bears lovely Breguet numerals, a softly vaulted Illinois logo, a subsidiary seconds register, and subtly blued steel hands. The whole of the dial has a textured finish to it that contrasts with each of the refined details. Stunning. Illinois, best known for its exacting railroad pocket watches, approached wristwatches like the Skyscraper with surprising sophistication. This was a period of transition—precision meeting style, American engineering embracing European-influenced Deco aesthetics—resulting in pieces that feel purposeful yet expressive. Paired with an alligator-pattern strap and classic pin buckle, the watch wears with understated elegance, equally comfortable under a cuff or as a point of quiet distinction on its own. It’s a refined survivor from the archives of the Illinois Watch Company—a reminder that American Art Deco watchmaking, at its best, was every bit as confident as its European counterparts.
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
The wristwatch overtook the pocket watch. Military use in the First World War, aviation, water-resistant cases (1926), automatic winding (1923–31), rectangular Art Deco designs and early chronographs and calendars defined the period.
Read the period in the timelineMore wristwatches from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Wristwatches
Bracelet watches were worn by women from the early nineteenth century — Breguet made one for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, in 1810–12 — but the wristwatch only became a man's instrument with military use and aviation in the early twentieth century. Between the World Wars it overtook the pocket watch; the 1920s and 1930s brought rectangular Art Deco cases, water-resistant cases and the first automatic winding systems.
After 1945 the wristwatch became a carrier of identity — dress watches, sports and dive watches, chronographs, calendars — produced by Swiss, American, Japanese, German, Soviet and Chinese industries. The quartz revolution after 1969 and the mechanical renaissance since the 1990s, including the rise of independent watchmakers, complete the story.
What to look for
- The reference number (between the lugs or inside the case back) and serial number, the starting point for dating.
- The calibre: its maker and number are often stamped under the dial or on the bridge.
- Originality of dial, hands and crown — refinished ('redial') dials are common.
- Case material marks: 18K/750, 14K/585, stainless steel, gold-filled, plated.
Dating clues
- Wire-lug cases: before c. 1925.
- Water-resistant screw-down cases: from 1926.
- Quartz movements: from 1969; sapphire crystals widespread after c. 1980.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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