Antique Illinois Railroad Pocket Watch, 1909

Antique Illinois railroad pocket watch, 1909.

The watch has a 17-jewel grade 79 stem-winding movement, railroad grade, which is working nicely. This particular grade of movement was in production from 1904 until 1920. The serial number on this particular movement, 2,158,427, dates it back to 1909.

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.

The watch measures 58mm diameter excluding the winding stem and the loop. The case was made by the American Watch Case Company and is stamped inside the screw-on case back as being Silveroid. Silveroid was an alloy often used in watch cases around this time and it came under various names such as Silverore and Silverine. Overall, the case is in good condition with just some general light surface marking to the back.

The glass lens is in super condition.

The double sunk dial is signed with ornate initials, TCPJ, probably a previous owner of the watch. Blued steel hands and outer minute markers with red numerals. As per the railroad specifications, the hands are initially lever set. The front cover is unscrewed and there is a small lever at 2. There are a couple of faint hairlines to the outer chapter ring but not too noticeable to the naked eye.

The watch comes 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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