Ball

Webb C. Ball was a Cleveland jeweller when, in April 1891, two trains collided head-on at Kipton, Ohio. The accident was traced to an engineer's watch that had stopped for four minutes and then started again without him noticing. Nine people died.

Ball was appointed Chief Time Inspector for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway and set about writing standards for what a railroad watch had to be: a minimum size, a minimum number of jewels, adjustment to five positions and to temperature, an accuracy tolerance of thirty seconds a week, and a bold black-on-white dial with Arabic numerals readable at a glance in poor light. His system of regular inspection spread across some 125,000 miles of American track, and the phrase "on the Ball" is generally credited to it.

The modern company is Swiss and still trades on the same principle, which is that a watch you cannot read is a watch that has failed. Its distinguishing feature is self-powered tritium gas tubes rather than luminous paint: sealed micro tubes that glow continuously for around 25 years without needing to be charged by light first.

Ball holds 2 models, from £1,755 to £3,400. Half cost less than £2,578, and a quarter less than £2,166. 2 of 2 are automatic. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.

1891

The Kipton crash; Ball is appointed Chief Time Inspector and begins writing the railroad standards

1893

The General Railroad Timepiece Standards are adopted across American railways

2005

Self-powered tritium gas tubes become the brand signature