Antique Waltham Railroad Grade Pocket Watch

Antique Waltham railroad grade pocket watch.

The watch has a grade 642 stem-winding movement which is working nicely. The plates are beautifully detailed, and the movement has a Lossier hairspring which means the hairspring allows the balance wheel to oscillate back and forth in precise rhythm. Micro regulation via the Ohlson regulator, invented by Olof Ohlson of Newton, Massachusetts, jewlled gold pallets, 17 jewels, adjusted five positions.

The movement is fully signed and the serial number 22097947 dates it back to 1918. In fact only 3000 of these particular movements were every produced, and all in the year 1918 (2000 lever set and 1000 stem set such as the watch we have here).

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 this particular watch would not have been used on the railways as it is not lever set, the specification was still at the required high levels and these high grade watches were purchased by other professionals and also civilians.

The movement is protected by an inner hinged cover.

The watch measures 50mm diameter excluding the winding stem and the loop. The case is gold plated and was made by the Dennison Watch Company, an English company who manufactured the majority of pocket watch cases for Waltham UK. The case has small marks across the back but overall is very acceptable for a piece of its age.

The watch glass is in good condition.

The signed dial is in lovely condition and has blued steel hands, a subsidiary seconds dial and an outer minute track.

The watch will be sent in a new presentation box.

ALL PRICES INCLUDE UK POSTAGE (because of GPSR legislation, we no longer post items less than 100 years old to Europe, including Northern Ireland).

Please contact us regarding international shipping.

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.

We are a VAT registered company and all purchases are covered by Consumer Regulations.

Credit / debit card purchases up to £300 can be made over the telephone on 01386 750238 or you can proceed via the 'Purchase Antique' button on each listing page. Alternatively, there is a Paypal payment link if you scroll down the page and we also accept bank transfers.

We are an on-line only business and do not have facilities for callers. Our offices are open from Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.

With regards to appraisals / valuations, we receive a huge number of information requests each day and unfortunately do not have the manpower to deal with them all individually. Our advice would be to contact a local auctioneer for a full appraisal.