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Ball RR Standard
Ball Railroad Std Pocket Watch 21J:
One of my favorite pocket watches, and most accurate, is this Ball/Waltham size 16. The railroad standards early in the century put many stipulations on watch makers for them to call their watches railroad approved or be allowed to put "Official Railroad Standard" on their watches. They needed, in part, to be size 16 or 18, open face, lever set (not stem set), double roller, steel escape wheel, micro regulation, winding stem at 12:00, grade on back plate, plain Arabic numbers, keep time to within +/- 30 seconds per week, be adjusted to at least 5 positions, and have at least 17 jewels. Every Ball watch was built as an official railroad standard watch. My particular watch is based on a Waltham design. Other designs that Ball used were Hamilton, Illinois, and Howard, I believe. The railroad companies used to put out lists of watches by model number which met all the requirements.