Longines Express Monarch Canadian Railroad Pocket Watch, 1901

Longines Express Monarch Canadian railroad pocket watch, 1901.

The watch has a high grade stem-winding movement, 21 jewels, five adjustments, which is working nicely. The movement is fully signed and the serial number 1,818,621 dates it back to 1901. The movement is also signed with the name of the original retailer and jeweller, J Guy Barber of Revelstoke, British Columbia. In 1907, Guy Barber was also listed as an inspector of Canadian Pacific Railway watches.

The great North American railroad watch became an institution after a fatal crash in 1891, which was caused in part by the stopping and then restarting of the engineer's watch, which caused it to be four minutes slow. In the early days of railroading, when trains ran by strict time and timetable rules, that four minutes proved to be fatal. As a result, in 1893, the General Railroad Timepiece Standards were adopted, which mandated high grade specifications including a minimum of 17 jewels in the movement, five adjustments and micro-metric regulation.

While the US railroad watches had American movements, the Canadian railroad watches often had Swiss movements, most notably Brandt (Omega), Longines and Zenith.

The watch measures 54mm diameter excluding the winding stem and the loop. The gold filled case was made by the Keystone Watch Case Company, and their mark is inside the case back along with the scratched in name of a previous owner of the watch, F Harris. His initials could be the same initials engraved on the back of the watch but they are quite difficult to decipher. Both the case and watch glass are in good condition with just the odd minor mark (and two small nibbles to the edge of the glass).

The white dial, known as a Canadian railroad dial, is in super condition and is signed by the original retailer. By 1883, the CPR had adopted 24 hour time as a standard, and it was a requirement that all watches used in company service had to be equipped with the 24 hour dial.

The watch has blued steel hands which are lever set. This was yet another requirement for railroad watches so that a train crew member could not accidentally alter the time setting while winding their watch.

The watch will be sent in a new presentation box.

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All of our watches are checked over before listing, and are also checked for accuracy which is usually within around +/- two to three minutes over 24 hours (unless otherwise stated), which is considered respectable for a vintage watch.

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