DAR Railway pocket watch

[brokenrail]

Hello I am a new member, a retired locomotive engineer from the CPR in Calgary, Alberta. As a hobby I collect Canadian private-label marked railway grade pocket watches. I just acquired an Elgin 16 size, 23 jewel, Veritas with a Arabic 24-hour Montgomery dial marked "W.T. Reynolds Newport, N.S." I would like to find out if this was a station on the Dominion Atlantic Railway

[brokenrail]

Photo of dial

[Paul Charland]

Hi, and welcome to the list,

Might be a little quiet around here but if you wait long enough, someone bound to answer your questions!

Newport is indeed on the DAR, about five miles east of Windsor on the way to Halifax, mileage 26.2 on the Halifax Sub.

Paul

[brokenrail]

Hello Paul:

Thank you for your quick reply, and the information on Newport. I have a book by the BRMNA on the Dominion Atlantic Railway, it has a map that shows some of the stations including Windsor, but there was no sign of Newport. Now I know the geographic location of Newport, and hopefully I can find some information about the watchmaker whose name is on the dial.

Best regards,

Larry

[Evangelineroute]

Welcome Larry,


"...hopefully I can find some information about the watchmaker whose name is on the dial."

Newport has a lot of qualities, but size is not one of them! It is doubtful there was a watchmaker or even a retailer of sufficient size in Newport to have his name marked on the dial.

From your experience, is it possible "W. T. Reynolds" might have been a trainman and the original owner of this time piece? Could this have been a presentation piece awarded for long service or on retirement? Can you determine the date of manufacture from the Elgin serial number?


Fred

[Dan Conlin]

I also have an Elgin railway, believed to have been used by a conductor from Canning on the DAR. I looked up the date on this very helpful Elgin serial number database: http://trusted-forwarder.org/elgin/data ... intro.html
My watch turned out to have been made in 1906.
I agree that Newport wouldn't have had a jeweler and the name is perhaps a custom feature down for the owner. Once the date of the watch is nailed down, some searches at the East Hants Historical Society in Windsor should be able to track down the identity of Mr. Reynolds.

Dan Conlin

[brokenrail]

Thank you for all the feedback on this thread, here is some additional information on pocket watch;

This Elgin pocket watch 16 size, 23 jewel, Serial # 15569502, Grade 376, Model Veritas was manufactured in 1910, 9000 of these pocket watches were manufactured between 1909 and 1917 in nine runs. I called this pocket watch a private-label, they are also called jewelers contract pocket watches, they were ordered from the watch manufacturing company to help the jeweler/watchmaker advertise, the companies had different policies in regards to doing this, some were no charge items, and some required a minimum order of 10. Could it be that W.T. Reynolds had a larger outlet in let's say Halifax, and had a smaller outlet in Newport, I've seen this on some of my other private-labels from out West. I don't believe this would have been a custom order for a trainman, or conductor. I do have one watch in my collection that was specially ordered by a locomotive engineer it is marked "Fred L. Joy B. of L.E. 483" Fred was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Division 483, in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Larry

[Evangelineroute]

Larry,

I have checked McAlpine's Nova Scotia Directory 1907-08...there were fifteen households headed by a Reynolds in Hants County all in the area of Newport. Most were farmers or labourers but one might be of interest to you: "Reynolds, Walter jeweler Cogmagun". This was a residential listing and not a commercial listing.

Apparently, today the area is called Cogmagun River, located 8 miles NE of Windsor and 4 miles NW of Newport.

As your watch was built in 1910, perhaps Walter had relocated to Newport by that date!

Fred

[brokenrail]

Hello Fred:

Thank you for the information on Walter Reynolds, looking at the timeline I think there's a good chance that he was the watchmaker/jeweler from Newport in 1910.

Larry Buchan