EA 819 – Mail Pouch – 6-size – Model 15 – Serial Number 159790 – 7 Jewels - Grade 5

Mail Pouch is a private label in Seth Thomas 6-size Model 15.

The Mail Pouch Tobacco Company offered premium products that could be obtained by redeeming product purchase vouchers. The premium products included cutlery, safes, jewelry, watches, clocks, lamps, brass bedsteads, musical instruments, silver-plated ware, fishing rods and reels, traveling bags, furniture, desks, and many other items. Based on the context and documentation, it is plausible that this private label pocket watch was offered as a premium for purchasing Mail Pouch Tobacco products.

Below you can see a Catalogue of Mail Pouch Tobacco Premiums. Based upon the merchandise offered within; I estimate this catalogue to have been issued around 1905. On page 13 below there is an advertisement at the top of the page for American-made Mail Pouch Watches. The 6-size Seth Thomas Mail Pouch pocket watch illustrated above on Seth Thomas Fan Space is not shown or described in this Mail Pouch advertisement; but a working relationship between the Mail Pouch Tobacco Company and the Seth Thomas Clock Company is demonstrated in the advertising on Page 30 and 31 where a 1905 Three-column Seth Thomas Sheffield Adamantine Mantel Clock and a 12-inch oak Seth Thomas Office Clock No. 6 are advertised. This catalog may have been issued after the Seth Thomas Clock Company might have stopped manufacturing pocket watches for the Mail Pouch Tobacco Company. It just seems too coincidental that Seth Thomas could have produced this Mail Pouch private label pocket watch for another company while the Mail Pouch Tobacco Company was selling the same product and selling Seth Thomas Clocks all at the same time.

Mail Pouch Premium Clocks
p. 30, Item 404 — Clock, parlor mantel, elaborate design, 8 day. 1750 vouchers. The woodcut corresponds to the Seth Thomas “Sheffield” Adamantine mantel clock (1905).
p. 31, Item 405 — Clock, for store, fine oak case, 8 days, pendulum, 12 inch dial. 1400 vouchers. The illustration and 12" dial specification match the Seth Thomas Office No. 6 (12").
These two consecutive listings show that Mail Pouch Tobacco Co. was sourcing Seth Thomas clocks for its premium program. In the same booklet (p. 13), Mail Pouch offered “Gentleman’s American Open Face” seven-jewel watches. The presence of multiple Seth Thomas clock models alongside those watch offerings strengthens the attribution that Mail Pouch–branded pocket watches could also have been supplied by Seth Thomas, consistent with my example (1899 Seth Thomas movement with Mail Pouch branding).

Open-Face vs. Hunting-Case Note.
The c.1905 Mail Pouch Tobacco Premiums Catalogue page reproduced here offers open-face watches (items 117–120, 902–903). My example is a hunting-case Seth Thomas Model 15 6-size Mail Pouch pocket watch using an 1899 movement. Premiums programs were frequently revised; other Mail Pouch catalogue printings very likely offered hunting-case options—or permitted an HC upgrade for additional vouchers—using the same American seven-jewel grade. This aligns with common practice in which brand programs purchased U.S. movements (Seth Thomas) and cased them through jobbers (e.g., Keystone/Dueber/Crescent) for specific mailings or later runs.

This advertisement appeared in The Weskansan on Saturday July 18, 1896, on page 3. The advertisement specifically prints “The ‘Mail Pouch’ Watches are made by a leading American Watch Company…” with only the words “Mail Pouch” in quotation marks indicating that the movement was marketed under the ‘Mail Pouch’ designation” tightening the description of the watch even more closely with the Seth Thomas Mail Pouch private label which carries a dial signature, “Mail Pouch”, only.