Manufacturers Index - Sears, Roebuck & Co. Sears, Roebuck. There is currentely no Serial Number Registry Steward for this manufacturer. If you would like to. Sears-Roebuck & Co. 'Special' - Produced by Illinois Watch Company, ca. 'Make a watch sell a watch' The Sears-Roebuck Company, truly one of the great merchandising empires of the 20th century, wasn't a watch manufacturer. But the Sears-Roebuck story is nonetheless inextricably intertwined with American horological history. Instrumen piano lagu bunda melly goeslaw. Richard Warren Sears Richard Warren Sears was born in 1863 in Stewartville, Minnesota to James Warren Sears and Eliza Burton, both of English descent. His father worked as a blacksmith and wagonwright, and also served on the city council in Spring Valley, Minnesota, where Richard spent his early years. The family was prosperous, but fell on financial hard times when James lost all his money in a failed stock venture. Because of this, Richard was forced to go to work at a young age in order to help support the family. He learned to be a telegraph operator, and worked for the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad, where he eventually became a railroad station agent at North Redwood, Minnesota. Sears-Roebuck & Co. 'Special' Movement is Illinois 6s, Model 1, 17-jewel. It was during Sears time as a station agent that American horological and merchandising history was made. In those days, fly-by-night COD companies would send out merchandise unsolicited to small town jewelers or retailers. A day or two later, the storekeeper would receive a letter or telegram saying the shipment had been sent 'by mistake' and they could purchase the merchandise at a 'deeply discounted price!' One particular North Redwood jeweler had been 'scammed' this way before, and refused a large consignment of pocket watches. Sears was constantly on the lookout for ways to supplement his meager income, and when he learned of the pocket watches Sears sought permission from the wholesaler to take over the consignment and try to sell the watches himself. As a telegraph operator and station agent, he was able to sell his watches to the crews of every train that came through the station. Word quickly spread to other station agents 'up and down the line' and the railroad provided a ready method to deliver his merchandise. His new watch business grew so quickly that within six-months he quit his job at the railroad, and moved to Minneapolis where he could focus all his attention on his mail-order watch business, and in 1886, at the age of 22, he founded the R.W. Sears Watch Company. By 1887, with business flourishing, Sears moved to Chicago. Sears produced a 50-page mail-order catalog devoted entirely to watches, and was soon selling thousands of dollars worth of 'fully guaranteed' watches each month. But some of the fully guaranteed watches wouldn't run or keep good time, and the cost of refunds or replacements was having an impact on the bottom line. Sears decided that repairing the watches would be cheaper than replacing them, and advertised for the services of a good watchmaker in the Chicago Daily News: 'WANTED: Watchmaker with reference who can furnish tools.
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