Kahle v. AshcroftThe ELgin National Watch Company history
originally submitted by Wayne Schlitt:
The Elgin National Watch Company of Elgin Illinois was founded in 1864 and produced high grade mechanical watches until the early 1960s. While the company is (effectively) gone, interest in these watches remain among both collectors and people who have inherited watches.
Stifled uses
Wayne Schlitt:
I have a website, http://elginwatches.org, that relies heavily on documents and pictures from the past in order to educate people about their watches. In many cases, the only information we have about various watches are the advertisments, articles in trade magazines and internal company documents that have survived over the many decades.
While the information created between 1864 and the early 1920s should be in the public domain, cases such as the "Happy Birthday" song keep me from being certain. Much of the information from the 1920s through the 1960s, may or may not be still copyrighted by someone somewhere. Trying to track these ownership rights has proven to be close to impossible. The trade magazines that contain many useful articles were never very large, and all traces of them have long disappeared.