Antique RR watch

[Merc]

726C5A79-533B-48D9-A909-DE49E1857F60.jpgF39B2400-EB4C-4428-9E61-3AC1BD0A4862.jpgD10826DC-539B-44F1-99D2-FF235E666D0B.jpg

I acquired a minty Railroad grade pocket watch recently that’s real eye candy. Thought you guys might enjoy seeing it. I consider old American guns and watches to be great engineering works of art.

The watch is a 1939 size 16 Elgin Grade 540 B. W. Raymond signature with 23 jewels and a Montgomery dial. It appears to be 100% original and is running well.

The old RR standard for accuracy during this watches heyday was plus or minus 30 seconds a week. It was gaining about 30 seconds a day so I let it run for several days and then made some minor adjustments to the regulator to slow down the balance speed a little and it’s now tracking my quartz standard very nicely. The photo of the movement shows the regulator is almost full fast. It’s now closer to mid scale. The movement is clean and corrosion free. This watch has obviously led a pampered life and will continue to do so while it’s in my possession.

www.dollartimes.com

Here’s a cool site. Open it and click on “Inflation Calculator.” My old Elgin sold for somewhere around $150 in 1939. Fill in those numbers to see what $150 is worth in today’s dollars.

[bdm]

Very nice time piece i have my grandfathers watch

[Merc]

I never knew my grandfather. He was a cop in Pittsburgh from 1900 to 1925 and no-one knows what happened to his watch, service pistol, uniform, etc. I do have my dad’s Elgin that he got on his 16th birthday in 1925. I also have my wife’s grandmother’s Elgin that she got on her 16th birthday in 1907.

[kj47]

That is a beauty, thanks for posting.

[Art]

Sweet watch.

Over the past few years I acquired a couple of antique heirloom watches, my family never apparently sold or gave away anything. My favorite of the two is a 1911 Waltham Crescent St. It's a lever set 21 Jewel adjusted to five positions but with a double roller but without the big spade hands that most railroads required. It keeps very nice time and I wear it sometimes when I dress up.

One of my best friends was a famous (and I say that advisedly) F.B.I. Agent. His father and mother live in Opelousas Louisiana are quite spry. The old man 96 and sharp as a tack. When he got out of High School at barely 17 he went to the railroad station and offered to work there as a laborer for free in exchange to learn telegraphy. Well within a year he was working full time and had to buy an approved watch which in his case was a Hamilton 992s which is in a display dome on his bookcase. It still runs and keeps time. He had an interesting military career in WWII but that's another story.

[Merc]

Art,

The RR watch evolved over time and some watches were acceptable at some RRs but not at others. Standardized time keeping rules changed all of that and by the 1920s through the 1960s, the American RR watch was the world’s best watch.

Your 1914 Crescent Street model was probably an acceptable RR watch when it was made. It fulfilled most of the basic requirements. The setting lever located under the front bezel was the most common requirement. Watches were set and sealed by the Timekeeper to prevent accidental time setting disturbances.

My oldest is an 11 jewel 1869 Waltham key winder in a big coin silver hunter case that still runs and keeps perfect time and the highest jewel count watch is a 1966 Seiko, 26 jewels automatic wristwatch that I bought at an estate sale for $5 and wear every day. I’m sure these old boys will still be capable of keeping time a few hundred years from now.

[Art]

Merc

You are correct, and not every railroad had the same standard.

The lever set was universally required in railroad watches by the 1890s because of a couple of really bad train wrecks caused by watches that had stopped or were way off. Most railroads prohibited their employees from even setting their watches. My buddie's dad mentioned that the watch had to go to a railroad approved jeweler once a month and he was given a loaner for the couple of days it was in to be checked and set. He also said his watch was so expensive, I think he mentioned $175.00 1939 dollars that he had to pay it off in installments.

Is your 1869 Waltham a Model 1857, if so old Abe Lincoln carried one of those.

Interesting thing about Waltham, they developed the first watches using interchangeable parts which bought quality watches into the hands of the regular guy. Before that any watch cost a caboodle of money and only the truly wealthy could buy one. A quality American watch built on the American System, or as it was sometimes called the Armory System could compete with any watch in the world, but I suspect you know all this stuff.

[Merc]

E65CDB09-E89A-415A-8F1C-33B40D25548B.jpgE0C0B636-5003-458D-B150-DECCBFB474D7.jpg461C0CDA-73E0-4F6E-838F-5E7A48C8BB6E.jpg

Here’s photos of the 1869 18s 11j American Watch Co. (Waltham) 1857 model, P.S. Bartlett signature watch so, it’s the same model that was owned and carried by President Lincoln. I read about the message a watchmaker scribed on the full plate of Lincoln’s watch once the Civil War began but didn’t realize that it was an 1857 model.

[Merc]

According to www.dollartimes.com, $175 in 1939 equaled $3082 in today’s dollars.

[oscars]

I bought a Rolex GMT Master for $210.00 from the Howard AFB BX in the mid ‘60’s. It is currently being resold at various jewelers for between 7 and 10000. I was never impressed with its accuracy.

[Merc]

You spent the equivalent of $1650 in today’s dollars for that Rolex in 1965. They were selling for a lot more than your purchase price in the civilian world. Figure on getting half of it’s current retail value if you ever decide to sell it. That’s still a sweet return on your investment. Rolex watches are expensive to get serviced and aren’t really known for their performance. I believe they’re sealed with dry nitrogen so opening the case to adjust the regulator exposes the movement to the elements.

[Art]

I bought a Rolex GMT Master for $210.00 from the Howard AFB BX in the mid ‘60’s. It is currently being resold at various jewelers for between 7 and 10000. I was never impressed with its accuracy.

You aren't the only one. I have known several Rolex owners who have told me that their watch was not only less accurate than a quartz watch but less accurate than some mechanical watches. I have a cousin who has a Rolex President who I gave a very pretty cleaned up and repaired Elgin 7 jewel (that's 7 not 17) hunter case ladies watch from about 1900 and she's told me it keeps comparable time than her Rolex. The women, especially, I know who've bought, or more accurately been gifted, Rolex watches have no problem saying they're primarily pieces of jewelry and status symbols.

Also, as Merc said, mechanical watches do need to be serviced; just like anything else mechanical. All my Waltham needed to be put back in running condition was to be cleaned and lubricated by a good watchmaker.

Fun thread.

[dryheat]

This is probably not a watch of any interest to you guys, but it's my dads old watch. I always thought it was "railroad approved" for some reason. A jeweler told me it wasn't very valuable. The watch next to it was my moms. Of course they mean a lot to me.

7E22DBFC3D034695A88CA39C9319073B.jpg

[Art]

This is probably not a watch of any interest to you guys, but it's my dads old watch. I always thought it was "railroad approved" for some reason. A jeweler told me it wasn't very valuable. The watch next to it was my moms. Of course they mean a lot to me.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44910[/ATTACH]

Well, if it's an heirloom watch and it keeps good time it would be worth something to me. When I wear a wristwatch I wear my father-in-law's old Hamilton Thin-o-Matic he got as a thirty year award at Exxon (then Esso) back when you actually got a gold watch. It's value for resale is almost all in the 14k gold case. But it has a good Swiss micro rotor automatic movement and keeps excellent time. My father-in-law was actually a good old boy so I'm glad to have it.

[Merc]

I have a few 7j watches that run well. One is a sweet running 1887 18s 7j Elgin with a heavy crystal. I was impressed by the size of the case. It’s huge! I bought it at an estate sale (where else?) several years ago for a few bucks and sent it to be cleaned and oiled. The watchmaker commented that it has almost no wear in the pivots and bushings. The 7j watches were the ones that most could afford but weren’t supposed to work as well or last as long as the higher quality watches. The 7j watches did OK and many are still working just fine today.

60616D03-BDDA-410C-B38C-1DD844B42414.jpg

Now, the “Dollar Watches” are a different story. No jewels, all bushings, all stamped parts, no spare parts, not fixable, not adjustable, they stop working after the oil dries up in a few years and get tossed and buy a new one.