Anglo-Celtic Company Ltd
After the Second World War, the British company, Ingersoll Ltd, joined with Smiths Industries Ltd and Vickers Armstrong in setting up the Anglo-Celtic Company Ltd on the Ynyscedwyn estate. This was on the outskirts of the village of Ystradgynlais, near Swansea, Wales. The first model featured the same movement as the earlier British Ingersolls, now designated calibre PY. These watches were branded Ingersoll Triumph and Smiths Empire. Ingersoll Ltd pulled out of the venture in 1969. Between 1946 and 1980, when the factory closed down, over 30,000,000 watches were made, and exported to 60 different countries throughout the world. They also made many character pocket watches, of many different subjects from the 1930s Prewar years 1933–1939 - Betty Boop, Big Bad Wolf, Buck Rogers, Dizzy Dean, Donald Duck, Flash gordon, Lone Ranger, Mickey Mouse, Moon Mullins, Popeye, Rudy Nebb, Skeezix, Smitty, Three Little Pigs, Tom MixSmiths, Ingersoll (Anglo-Celtic) - Ranger, Jamboree, Football (blue & yellow skies), the 1953 coronation watches, the Guinness automaton & cross bottle watches, the 1951 'From Outer Space' and the Esquire magazine watches . Postwar years 1946–1958 - Captain Marvel, Captain Midnight, Dan Dare (shown shooting monster with moving arm, revolving space dial, and Eagle logo on watch case), Dick Tracy, Donald Duck, Hopalong cassidy, Jeff Arnold, Peter Pan. then in Great Britain several Eagle comic watches were made including, Dan Dare red Label with moving arm and Rocket Ship and word Ingersoll, Dan Dare Black Label with no Ingersoll writing just the word Dan Dare, Ingersoll Jeff Arnold with moving arm, then Ingersoll Jeff Arnold without the word Ingersoll, then Jeff Arnold without the moving arm (this model is very scarce and was part of a late production run of approx 1,500 watches so if you have this model it's quite collectable) 1958–1972 - Buck Rogers, Buster brown, Charlie Chaplin, Flash Gordon, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey & Minnie, Roy Rogers, Superman, Valentino.
Smith Watches were sold in the early 1980s to another company who bought all the rights; they have since made Combat watches, Timex, Aircraft plus many more makes without even names on them, but all Smiths-cased dollar watches. Over 100 character watches were made by unknown companies. There are lots of different designs out there, including many advertising Pocket Watches Double Diamond and Players Please, to name a few.
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