Hello Jay - Thank you for sending us your fine pocket watch for appraisal:
TITLE:
Gent's, 16s, 14k yellow gold, pendant wound and lever set, open face pocket watch, Official Railroad Standard- RR, case made by Jeannot & Shiebler Watch Case Company of New York City and the watch made by the Waltham Watch Company of Waltham, Ma. in cooperation with the Ball Watch Company of Cleveland, Ohio, circa 1905.
DESCRIPTION:
Case - 16 size, 14k yellow gold, three leaf, open face pocket watch with suppressed fluted ball pendant and round bow @12, outer cover not shown, the inside of the outer cover marked with the logo for Jeannot & Scheibler Watch Case Company (in business post 1892) - a large 'Y' overlies a small ‘s’, case serial number 156952 and the 14k mark surrounded by the name, Ball Watch Company, Cleveland, Ohio. The cuvette has an inscription dated Feb. 9, 1907...
Dial: White enameled dial with upright bold Arabic hours, bar minutes, sunken sub-seconds bit @6, Continental style spade hands and the upper dial marked, "Trademark, Official Standard, ball Watch Company, Cleveland Ohio"...
Movement: Made by Ball-Waltham, a 16s, concentric circular damascened three quarter plate movement, S/N B208652, Official Standard RR Grade, Model 1899, 17 jewels, pendant wound and lever set, adjusted and of railroad grade...
CONDITION: Case is in very fine condition with two problems. The watch is not functional, a major problem for pricing, and therefore requires a deduction. The other is a small hairline fracture at the 26 minute marker, which is small yet important to collectors and therefore is a deduction to pricing. The fair market price on a similar watch in a gold filled, steel case is $300-$400 (in running condition) One way to look at this watch is to cancel out the lack of function and the hairline dial fracture with the fine 14k gold case, which is what I have done.
HISTORICAL:
Webb C. Ball was born in 1847 and died in 1922. As a young man he worked in several shops, including his own, repairing watches. He came "into his own" during the 1890's when all the railroads were upgrading their timekeeping standards. Ball became active in separate businesses. He established the Ball Railroad Time Service which contracted with the railroads to establish accuracy of train times. At the same time he formed the Ball Watch company and the Railroad Watch Company to supply the watches to be used on these railroad (RR) lines. Ball obtained the watches, built to his own specifications, from several watch companies. In his factory his own repairmen adjusted the movements to meet Ball's high standards for timekeeping. He sold these watches under his own name using his own trademarks "Ball's Official RR Standard (ORSS) or the Brotherhood Official Standard (BOS) on the dials. The early period of Ball watch production took place between 1881 and 1900. During the 1880's he initially used movements made by Elgin, Aurora, New York Watch Company, Seth Thomas and later Howard/Keystone. By the late 1880's the word Standard on the dial indicated that these watches met current RR time standards of accuracy. ====In the early 1890's he used watch movements from the Dueber-Hampden firm as well as purchasing fine Swiss movements from Europe. Between 1894 and 1895 Webb Ball became vice president of the famous Hamilton Watch company of Lancaster, Pa. Therefore, he began to buy most movements used in his Ball Watch Company pocket watches from the Hamilton Company. These are known as Ball-Hamilton Watches. These were large pocket watches, size 18. By this time he dropped the watchmakers name from the movement and only used his own name. Also at this time he ran the Railroad Watch Company which apparently was a line of watches aimed more at the general public than at railroaders. By 1900 Ball contracted with the Waltham Watch company of Waltham, Ma. to produce size 16 movements for his watches and build them to his stringent specifications. By the turn of the 20th century the Ball 17 jewel Official Standard movement was most commonly found being used by RR men. After 1900 Ball started using 19, 21 and 23 jewel movements. During the years 1900-1914 Ball used the Hamilton watch Company to supply size 18 pocket watches. By 1906 he started using a 21 jeweled movement. Around 1904-1905 he placed the number "grade 999" on his movements, specifically meant for the N.Y Central and Hudson River RR lines. The serial number on the movement in 1906 was 533001. Size 18 watches disappeared for the most part by 1912 and were not in the 1919 catalog. Waltham ONLY provided size 16 pocket watches. Elgin made size 18 & 16 open faced and hunting cased pocket watches for Ball starting about 1904-05. All Elgins were marked 329, 330, 333 or 334 on the movement. The Ball catalogs between 1903 and 1907 were almost exclusively open faced pocket watches rather than hunting cases for all of the ORRS grade watches. Those catalogs did not distinguish between size 18 Hamilton or Elgin supplied movements. About 1913 Ball added a shaped safety bow sitting above the stem on all of its watches. Prior to that the stem merely had a round metal link attached for connecting a chain. In the late 1920's Ball turned to the Illinois Watch Company to supply his movements and during the 1950's the company turned again to Switzerland, the Record Watch Company, to supply movements. These latter watches contained more jewels, but Ball always felt that 17 or 19 jewels were best for simplicity and accuracy of RR watches. He viewed using more jewels as a "passing fad", but sold such watches to increase company revenue

Again, thank you for sending us your watch for appraisal.
If you have any further questions feel free to write,
David