Elgin Extends Fair Trade Contracts Into All States Having Fair Trade Laws

From American Horologist magazine, May, 1939

Elgin Extends Fair Trade Contracts Into All States Having Fair Trade Laws

The Elgin National Watch Company, the first watch manufacturer to protect its retail distributors against the injurious effects of price cutting by establishing retail prices under the Fair Trade laws, recently announced that it intends to extend that policy by the issuance of contracts in all states which have enacted such laws. The Elgin company inaugurated,this policy with the issuance of Retail Sales Contracts in Illinois on January 15, 1937. Shortly after the passage of the Miller-Tydings federal enabling legislation in August of 1937, it issued contracts under the Fair Trade acts of certain other states. Contracts have recently been mailed to New York and the remaining states will be covered as rapidly as possible. At the present time forty-four states have Fair Trade Laws.

That the Elgin company intends to protect its dealers to the fullest extent permitted by law is not only evidenced by the general distribution now being made of contracts under the Fair Trade acts, but also by the fact that on April 12 it instituted a suit under its contract and the law in Illinois at Quincy against Kenneth Hull, a local retail jeweler, and obtained on the same day a preliminary injunction restraining him from advertising, offering for sale or selling Elgin watches at less than the established prices.

Hull had been conducting an auction at which Elgin watches and other nationally advertised lines were being sold to the highest bidder without regard to retail prices. The action was taken to protect the jewelry trade of Quincy.