WHAT IS A RAILROAD WATCH? CAVEAT EMPTOR, BUYER BEWARE!
This past few days I read an ad on ebay which advertised an Elgin pocket watch as a “RAILROAD WATCH” perhaps at some time in the past this watch had been carried by someone, probably a passenger, riding on a railroad, but it surely was NOT a “RAILROAD WATCH”. After 1891 very strict standards were imposed on watches carried by people working on the railroads. The watch had to be at least sixteen size, it had to have a MINIMUM of seventeen jewels. It had to be adjusted to positions and temperature. It was a lever set watch which means that the time could not be changed without pulling out, and usually physically holding out a lever to change the position of the hands. The face could NOT have Roman numerals, Arabic numerals being the standard. There is a good article in A COMPLETE GUIDE TO OLD WATCHES BY GILBERT, ET AL which gives all the Ball standards set in 1891. The watches were usually open face, not in a Hunter case. The watch also had to be inspected, and adjusted to assure that it would keep time within very narrow limits without fail. The railroads had a card on which the date of inspection and the time keeping tolerance were entered, otherwise the watch was not legal to use on the railroad. True railroad watches were, and are the epitomy of the watchmakers art. Beware that the Swiss and other Euruopeans made rip-off copies of the true watches. Railroad watches in almost any condition command a premium over the other watches that were made by the big manufacturers. So, as my title says: CAVEAT EMPTOR, LET THE BUYER BEWARE, just because the seller says they don’t know anything about watches, but theirs is a “railroad watch”, it doesn’t mean that it is. I repair old pocket watches and I have a whole drawer full of old watch faces, many of which meet the railroad standard, but putting one of them on a sorry old seven jewel movement doesn’t make them a railroad watch. By the way, the watch that I described that was on ebay the last few days, was indeed, a sorry old seven jewel movement. Seven jewels is the bottom of the food chain, just above a Mickey Mouse watch which usually has no jewels at all! Thank you, and remember, all that glitters, is not gold! Robert