A rare Railway Regulator?

[soviet]

Hi all,

I picked up this interesting Railway Regulator pocket watch recently. It has an unique dial with second hand goes backward. It has a crude pin lever movement made of brass.
I wonder if this is a rare watch? When and how many were made? The watch is still in excellent cosmetic conditions for its age. Anyway, it is an interesting watch to add to my collection. The crown may not be original. I hope I didn't pay too much for it(RMB 200).:-S
Thanks for any input.

Cheers,

Zhang

[Chascomm]

Hi all,

I picked up this interesting Railway Regulator pocket watch recently. It has an unique dial with second hand goes backward. It has a crude pin lever movement made of brass.
I wonder if this is a rare watch? When and how many were made? The watch is still in excellent cosmetic conditions for its age. Anyway, it is an interesting watch to add to my collection. The crown may not be original. I hope I didn't pay too much for it(RMB 200).:-S
Thanks for any input.

Cheers,

ZhangI would guess that the large crown came from a stop-watch. The bow for attaching the chain is unlikely to be original and they tend to wear and break faster than any other part of the watch.

The pin-set keyless works suggests that this watch is from the 1920s or earlier. I'm no expert on these things but I think the backwards seconds hand is to enable seconds to be installed on a Roskopf train with only one extra wheel instead of 2. Many Roskopfs of the 'dollar watch' era hand no seconds hand.

The style is consistent with railway use, but there were many railway replicas produced back then. Roskopfs with pin-lever escapements were actually used by the Belgian national railways, but such a watch would have been signed in French, rather than English. By contrast American railways used high-grade, locally-produced jewelled-lever watches, and I guess the British railways used English lever watches.

[JohnF]

Hi -

Absolutely agree with a comment or two: a number of items on the face are later additions.

First, I've never seen a pocket watch with the 24-hour markings added in such a way that they are in the middle of a sunken dial. Makes it hard to read. Also the subsecond dial is superimposed on the hours, but not on the 24-hours? Naaaa.

Second, it's not a regulator watch: regulator watches have seperate dials for the minute and hour hands. Ok, that's splitting hairs perhaps, but the radius of the wording "Railroad Regulator" is also different from the rest of the watch face elements, at the least a design faux paus and at worst sloppy work.

Rare? Yep. But only in the sense that there really won't be many of these around, as the movement won't take a lot of wear and tear, and most made are probably long, long gone. But worth something?

JohnF

[Chascomm]

I was looking through my copy of M.Cutmore's 'Watches 1850-1980' and I found some interesting stuff about the early cheap Swiss Roskopf pin-levers from the 1920s-30s (as opposed to the higher quality Roskopf patent watches of the late 19th Century).

Cutmore states that many were labelled 'Railway Watch' (or similar wording) with locomotive stamped backs and illustrated dials. The example shown is a Siro 'Railway Regulator' made by Oris (a major manufacturer of pin-levers). It has no second hand and push-pull crown, but it at least shows that 'Railway Regulator' was used on watches in the 1920s.

On the next page I see a 1930s Roskopf of unknown brand with pin-set keyless works, which shows how late that system was used on some cheaper watches.

What I can't find an example of though, is the backwards seconds.

[JohnF]

Hi -

I stand corrected. :-)

Still, it's an odd thing to put on such a watch: after all, it's not a regulator design.

Goes to show, I guess, that even back then there were watch makers who aspired to something that they weren't, that they appropriated buzz words in order to increase their market appeal. After all, it is a very basic brass pinlever movement...

JohnF

[soviet]

I would guess that the large crown came from a stop-watch. The bow for attaching the chain is unlikely to be original and they tend to wear and break faster than any other part of the watch.

The pin-set keyless works suggests that this watch is from the 1920s or earlier. I'm no expert on these things but I think the backwards seconds hand is to enable seconds to be installed on a Roskopf train with only one extra wheel instead of 2. Many Roskopfs of the 'dollar watch' era hand no seconds hand.

The style is consistent with railway use, but there were many railway replicas produced back then. Roskopfs with pin-lever escapements were actually used by the Belgian national railways, but such a watch would have been signed in French, rather than English. By contrast American railways used high-grade, locally-produced jewelled-lever watches, and I guess the British railways used English lever watches.

Chascomm, Thanks for your help. The watch came with a copper chain that looks very ancient. I have another Superior Time Keeper pocket watch with a similar movement, but a larger diameter. The watch was made for China with "Made in Swiss" in Chinese on the movement and dial. There are words in red ink "CEIBCO" on the dial, and BREVETS,DEPOSES on the movement. I feel these two watches could have been made by the same company. They have similar hands , the reverse second hand one has a thick glass crystal, and the Superior Time Keeper has a yellowish plastic crystal.
Foreign pocket watches are easy to find, but they usually cost much more than wristwatches.

Cheers,

Zhang

[soviet]

.....
On the next page I see a 1930s Roskopf of unknown brand with pin-set keyless works, which shows how late that system was used on some cheaper watches.

What I can't find an example of though, is the backwards seconds.

I bought it for the backward seconds, and the unique dial. The watch is also in excellent condition for its age.

The dealer showed me a HY Moser made for Russia for twice the price(40 euro), but the watch has some missing parts. That HY Moser has a very beautiful, high grade movement. A gold plated Elgin pocket watch would cost RMB 1,000(100 euro).

[soviet]

Hi -

I stand corrected. :-)

Still, it's an odd thing to put on such a watch: after all, it's not a regulator design.

Goes to show, I guess, that even back then there were watch makers who aspired to something that they weren't, that they appropriated buzz words in order to increase their market appeal. After all, it is a very basic brass pinlever movement...

JohnF


Thanks JohnF. I just learned that a railway grade watch must have at least 19 jewels(?). I am not sure if the old Chinese railway workers did use these pin-lever watches to keep time.:-D

[Chascomm]

Goes to show, I guess, that even back then there were watch makers who aspired to something that they weren't, that they appropriated buzz words in order to increase their market appeal. Remember all those faux-chronographs from the late 19th Century? That was a fad that lasted right up to the 1960s.

I guess a 1920s faux-Railway watch is about the same as a 'Space Age' style watch in the 1970s; it represents progress, technology etc.