1920 Elgin B W Raymond Railroad Pocket Watch

1920 Elgin B W Raymond railroad pocket watch.

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, micro-metric regulation and lever set hands.

The B W Raymond model was named after Benjamin Wright Raymond, the first president and one of the primary investors in the National Watch Company of Chicago (later renamed the Elgin National Watch Company).

This particular watch has a beautifully patterned stem-winding movement, grade 455 with 19 jewels, which is working nicely. The grade 455 was only produced for four years, from 1918 to 1922. The serial number on the movement, 22,244,759 dates this particular watch back to 1920.

The watch measures 50mm diameter excluding the winding stem and the loop. The case is gold filled and was made by Canadian Company the American Watch Case Company. The case has screw-on bezel and case back and it is all in very nice condition with engine turned detail to the back and a vacant cartouche.

The watch glass has some marking, mostly small marks.

The double sunk enamel dial is in very nice condition and has blued steel hands, a subsidiary seconds dial and an inner 24 hour dial. The hands are initially lever set which means that the bezel is unscrewed, a small lever by number 1 is gently pulled out and the hands adjusted accordingly.

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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