Four Items Related to Wright, Bro. & Co., Watch Importers (and Fraudsters), 1867

Very good. Four pieces of ephemera offering the goods of Wright, Bro. & Co. of New York, Importers of Watches. Includes a double-sided printed circular letter (4.75" x 8"), a four-panel folding booklet (3" x 4.75") seeking agents and including a list of watches and their prices, a "certificate" (2" x 3.75") to be sent with $10 and exchanged for a $45 Railway Time-keeper watch, and an order form with text warning against unscrupulous imitators of the company's business model. All but the order form (undated) are dated 1867.  Some folding creases, generally very good condition.  Apparently the company worked by distributing certificates (through agents who paid for them), promising customers that if they sent in their $10 (plus shipping, plus the price of a required morocco case) they would get a watch worth at least that much, but possibly much more. "TRY YOUR LUCK!" they urge, "Obtain at least a watch well worth the insignificant sum paid, while you have the opportunity of obtaining a Magnificent Gold Hunting Chronometer!! WORTH $1000!!!" If it sounded too good to be true, it almost certainly was. In a letter to the editor of the Connecticut State Temperance Journal and Home Visitor published in 1868, a reader calling himself "Justice" warns the public that Wright, Bro. & Co. are "unmitigated scoundrels" and reporting that their purported $100 silver watch was silver plate worth $9, and their 75-cent morocco case was actually wood and worth 3 cents. Although the company advertised widely in 1867 and 1868, we find no reference to them after that, suggesting people caught on fairly quickly. .

Item #21647

Price: $50.00