Waltham Vanguard Rail Road Grade Pocket Watch

Waltham Vanguard rail road grade pocket watch.

The watch has a high grade movement with 23 jewels, five adjustments, which is working nicely. There is a patent micro regulator, Ohlson 1908. The movement is fully signed on the beautifully patterned plates and the serial number 23,051,679 dates it back to around 1919. The high specifications of the movement tell us that this is a railroad grade piece.

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 the gold filled Moon model from the Dennison Watch Case Company, the company supplied the majority of cases to Waltham UK. The case is in very nice condition, just one pin prick “ding” to the front.

The small central lens is surrounded by enamel filled Roman numerals.

The front cover is opened by pressing the winding crown in.

Inside, there is an acrylic lens which is in lovely condition.

The signed triple sunk dial has a short hairline by number 1 and another short hairline just underneath the subsidiary seconds dial. It is good to see the special half hunter hour hand which means that the time can be read when the front cover is closed.

The watch comes 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.

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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.

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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.