Staying home from church this morning. Mrs. noelekal didn't want to attend with a red-eyed Halloween ghoul who had strabismus eye surgery on both eyes three days ago. Am cozying up for the day with this quite pretty 16size, 1906, 19-jewel Waltham Riverside.
Sometime after a disasterous 1891 collision between two Lake Shore & Michigan trains, Webb. C. Ball was commissioned as Chief Time Inspector by railroad officials to better keep trains from bumping into each other. Ball is claimed to have once said that the 19-jewel Waltham 1899 model Riverside movement was the best running railroad watch. He was said to prefer 19-jewel or even 17-jewel movements over the more highly 21-jewel and 23-jewel movements that were coming into vogue as the premium watches. One Ball watch ad even compared the extra jewels to jeweling the smokestack on a locomotive!