Star Watch Case Company

The Star Watch Case Company was a manufacturing firm in Ludington, Michigan, from approximately 1905 until it went out of business in 1982. The company designed and manufactured watch cases for Hamilton, Longines, Gruen and Elgin among others who shipped their internal watch mechanisms to Star which would complete final assembly.
The company began making cases for pocket watches, adding wristwatches later. Star also manufactured small mechanical parts for military equipment during World War II.
Products.
The Star Watch Case Company designed, manufactured and assembled watch cases for a plethora of watchmakers. The movements (mechanisms), dials, hands, crystals (glass watch faces), and some of the crowns (buttons used to wind the watch) were made by other vendors and shipped to Star for final assembly. Star's watchmaker clients included Manistee Watch Company, Hamilton, Longines, Elgin, Gruen, Omega and Pulsar. 
Until World War I the company manufactured pocket watch cases exclusively. They were available in solid gold, gold filled, sterling silver, rolled nickel-silver or brass. Styles included open face and hunting cases. After the war wristwatch cases were added to the product line.
Early history.
The immediate predecessor of the Star Watch Case Company was a watchmaker in Elgin, Illinois, that was founded in 1898 by Otto A. Starke, Fred Hermann and Alfred W. Church. In 1902 or 1903 a large fire destroyed the Illinois manufacturing facility. The company was well insured, so it was able to recover. There were 27 employees in the bustling business pre-fire. The company changed its name sometime between 1903 and 1905 to the Star Watch Case Company. and incorporated on February 7, 1905. Officers of the new Star Watch Case Company were Otto A. Starke, president; Fred Hermann, vice president; Warren Antoine Cartier, secretary; and Alfred W. Church, treasurer. 
Later in 1905 the company moved to Ludington, Michigan. By 1913 it had about 150 employees, which grew to 400 by 1925. The company's (sometimes referred to as Star Watchcase Company) employment reached its peak during World War II at 550 employees. The primary factory building was built in 1905 on South Rath Avenue and was first expanded in 1910. North and south wings were added to the main building in 1920. In 1927, the company added still another enlargement wing for tool and die equipment and machinery. In 1943, the building was further enlarged with the addition of new office space bringing the overall size of the plant to three stories and 70,000 sq. ft.
Employees.
In 1906 in Ludington, the company's key hand engrave was Fritz Baumgartner, assisted by hand engravers Emil Allemann and Otto Starke.
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Military.
Pocket watch cases were Star's major product until the United States entered the World War II. Then the factory was converted to making brass compass cases, small weapons components, and submarine parts. During the war, the company's reputation for making quality stainless steel military watch cases and cases for military compasses grew. Additionally, the company manufactured elements of military navigational aids. It also made components for the top secret Norden bombsight, used for accurate airborne bombing.
NASA.
Star Watch Case Company made cases for the Omega Speedmaster Professional, worn by Eugene A. Cernan on a trip to the moon. This watch is commonly referred to as the "Moonwatch." Other similar Star models were worn on various space missions.
Pantograph.
A Star employee, Andrew Hallberg, developed a proprietary pantograph which increased production speed by allowing up to 32 watch backs to be engraved simultaneously. The cutting-edge, mass-production technology was closely guarded from competitors, giving the company an advantage in accelerated watch case production. The concept of a pantograph was first mentioned by Hero of Alexandria almost 2000 years ago. It is a device that can copy and scale, in the instance of Star Watch Case, various engravings on the reverse side of a watch case using the mathematical properties of parallelograms. The Star Watch Case pantograph could engrave up to 32 watch cases at a time, much more efficiently than hand engraving. An actual pantograph used by the company is on display at the Time Museum in White Pine Village in Ludington. The machine was so successful that by 1930 hand engraving of pocket watches become obsolete.
Case grades.
The company used these raw materials for watch cases: gold, silver, nickel, brass, zinc and chrome-plated; most preferred were solid gold or gold-filled. A local Ludington bank held their gold supply (in bars), then the bars were transferred to the factory as needed for melting and manufacturing. The factory held around $200,000 worth of gold at any one time for watch cases of 10, 14, or 18 karats.
Designs and trade marks.
An early popular design was of the battleship USS Maine (ACR-1) bearing the well known slogan - "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!". The company's trade mark is a five-pointed star and the double-headed eagle. Additional Star trade marks are below:
Demise.
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In the 1950s, the beginning of the end of the company surfaced when the Elgin Watch Company decided that a single vendor should not supply more than a third of its needs. Star Watch Case Company was removed from Elgin's supplier list. Two decades later the company was all but out of business. In 1979 it was sold to Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère. By 1982 the Star Watch Case Company was defunct. All of the company's furnishings and machinery were soon sold. The building was demolished in 1995.