Elgin B.W. Raymond Grade 478 21 Jewel Railroad Grade Pocket Watch with Black Dial (1925)

About this Elgin B.W. Raymond 478 Black Dial

By mating a classic American railroad movement with an unapproved black dial, this piece pairs precision engineering with a strikingly desirable custom look. The movement is a 21-jewel B.W. Raymond grade 478, finished at Elgin, Illinois in 1925 and adjusted to five positions, temperature and isochronism. Later in its life it was fitted with a black dial with bold white Arabic numerals and white spade and whip hands, and housed in a Keystone steel case in the clean Art Deco style of the 1920's. The B.W. Raymond name goes back to the very first Elgin movement, finished in April 1867 and named for the company's president, Benjamin W. Raymond, a former mayor of Chicago. Collectors prize black-dial pocket watches today, but because they were almost exclusively military-issue, finding one paired with a railroad-grade movement is a true rarity.

The 16-size Model 15 movement is lever set, with 21 jewels in gold settings, a quick train beating 18,000 times an hour, and adjustment to temperature, isochronism and five positions. Its nickel three-quarter plates are finished in a wide stripe damaskeening pattern, with the B.W. Raymond signature filled in gold. This is the classic railroad specification of its day, a compensating balance holds its rate through heat and cold, and a regulator of Webb C. Ball's 1896 patent, a regulator that can be adjusted in small, precise steps. Elgin's catalogs listed the B.W. Raymond as meeting all railroad service requirements. This movement comes from a run of 3,000 out of 186,400 grade 478s, and it is in very good condition.

The black dial is the highlight of the watch. Bold white Arabic numerals, a white minute track and a black seconds register with white figures stand out sharply, read by white spade and whip hands, and the dial is in excellent condition. Railroad time-service rules called for plain white dials with bold black numerals, so a black dial was never meant for service on the rails; Elgin itself used black dials with white hands mainly on its military watches of the Second World War, where contrast and legibility counted. On this watch the custom black dial is a later enhancement, and it turns a classic railroad movement into something rarely seen. Setting it is done the railroad way: snap off the front bezel, pull out the setting lever at the edge of the dial, turn the crown to move the hands, then push the lever back and snap the bezel back on. This custom black dial and handset shows beautifully.

The case is a Keystone in steel, stamped inside the back with Keystone's mark and "Base Metal." Its stepped bezel, smooth back and square bar bow over a fluted crown give it clean, modern lines that suit the black dial perfectly. Both the front and back bezels are pressure fitted and snap on and off, and a case opener knife is included so you can open it safely. Keystone made watch cases in Philadelphia from the 1880s into the 1950s. The case is in excellent condition, with a solid tactile experience in the hand.

1925 was the heart of the Jazz Age. On February 2 the sled dogs of the serum run reached Nome, Alaska with diphtheria antitoxin, and on March 4 Calvin Coolidge's inauguration became the first broadcast nationally by radio. In April Charles Scribner's Sons published The Great Gatsby, and in July the Scopes Trial gripped the country from Dayton, Tennessee. On the rails, the Central Railroad of New Jersey put CNJ No. 1000 to work that autumn, the first commercially successful diesel-electric locomotive in the United States, and on November 28 a Nashville radio station broadcast the first of the barn dances that became the Grand Ole Opry. Railroad men of 1925 were still carrying B.W. Raymonds like this one, on white dials, to keep the trains on time.

This BW Raymond has just been cleaned, oiled and adjusted for accuracy and warranted for one full year from the date of purchase.