Waltham railroad openface pocket watch, circa 1950

Record summary

Catalogued by LiveAuctioneers auction archive (lot Item 24982660), this is a pocket watch by Waltham, made in United States, dated c. 1950. The Atlas places it in the Modern Mechanical Horology period (1945 – 1969) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: gold, gold-filled. The record is illustrated with 4 photographs.

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.

Read next:Detached lever escapement