South Eastern and Chatham Railway American Waltham nickel cased lever pocket watch by Railway Interest, circa 1917

Record summary

Catalogued by Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham (lot Sale 56, lot 59), this is a pocket watch by Railway Interest, made in United States, dated c. 1917. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: nickel. Recorded dimensions: Diameter 58 mm. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.

Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.

Catalogue description

Atlas type guide

Railroad and railway watches

Timetables made accurate timekeeping a matter of safety. After a fatal collision at Kipton, Ohio, in 1891, American railroads adopted strict standards: open-face watches, lever setting, at least 17 jewels, adjustment to temperature and five positions, and a performance within 30 seconds a week, inspected regularly by approved watch inspectors. Waltham, Elgin, Hamilton, Illinois and Ball made railroad-grade watches in large numbers.

European railways issued service watches to guards, drivers and station staff, often engraved with the railway's initials and a staff number. Such watches link industrial timekeeping with the standardisation of time zones (Greenwich Mean Time adopted by British railways in 1847; North American standard time in 1883).

General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.

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