Luxury Watches – Fashion, Sports, Prestige

It’s interesting that a watch known and respected for its superior accuracy was a brand never manufactured in its own right. This refers of course to Ball watches which even today carry on the legacy of ultra precision timekeeping.

This all came about back in the late 1800’s when two trains traveling toward each other on the same track collided in1891 causing the deaths of both engineers along with several others. The collision resulted from one engineers watch having briefly stopped and started again.

Keep in mind at the time there were no cell phones or even radio to provide the instant communication we have today. The only way to manage the comings and goings of so many trains was that they must start and stop precisely as scheduled. A difference of minutes could be disastrous.

Problem was that timepieces back then weren’t that accurate or dependable, plus there was no time standard. Every major city set their own official “time” based on the sun and the railroads ended up with dozens of “times” to reconcile.

So it was because of this fatal train wreck that railroad officials commissioned Webster C. Ball as their Chief Time Inspector, and tasked him with establishing precision watch standards and a reliable timepiece inspection system for railroad chronometers. These General Railroad Timepiece Standards were adopted by most railroads in 1893.

Ball who operated a small jewelry store at the time, took the opportunity to position his company to provide a watch that would meet these strict standards by contracting with established watch companies such as Hamilton, Elgin, Waltham, and others to supply him with watch movements. Then he inserted these movements into the high quality cases that carried the Ball Watch Company name. 

Even though several manufacturers ended up supplying watches that met Ball standards to the railroads, it was only those timepieces that actually bore the Ball name on the case that were considered the Rolls-Royce of railroad pocket watches for over a hundred years.

Today, Ball watches use movements made in Switzerland, and continue in their tradition of  offering superior accuracy and reliability.