the mathematical properties of parallelograms. 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 became obsolete. The company performed all phases of manufacture of a watch case at their Ludington facilities, except the making of watch crystals. The raw material for the watch cases consisted of flat stock, wire and seamless tubing made from a fine gold, which was an alloy formulated by the company. The parts were blanked out, formed and pressed, machined to size, assembled, drilled, turned and reamed to fit the movement that was going to be used in it. Next the cases were polished, plated, fitted with crystals, inspected and the final produced product shipped for merchandising. Up to 150 different operations could be performed on a watch case, with precision as close as a thousandth of an inch on average. The finished product was free of any scratch, blemish, stain or finger mark. This close tolerance work required a number of precise and accurate tools, dies, and fixtures — which were all made at the company facilities. The company made gold, silver, nickel, brass, zinc and chrome-plated cases with solid gold and gold-filled based cases most popular. Ludington State Bank in downtown Ludington held their gold supply (in bars), then the bars were transferred to the factory as needed for melting and manufacturing. The factory in the 1920s held around $200,000 () worth of gold at any one time for watch cases of 10, 14, or 18 karats. Following are the model case names and metals used: The Star gold-filled case was guaranteed for 20 years as late as November 1906 and 25 years by April 1909. The Defiance gold-filled case was guaranteed for 10 years. The Majestic gold-filled case was guaranteed for 5 years. The Stellar had a 10 karat rolled gold plate case. The Scepter was a gold-filled or rolled gold plate case. The Excellence was a silver case. The company's trade mark was a five-pointed star and the double-headed eagle. Additional Star trade marks are below: Demise The American watch industry was the first in the world to mechanize production on a large scale which forced the dominant Swiss watch industry to mechanize. The first watches were large but as machines were developed they became smaller in size