Assistant horologist Lion

This is Lion, our (currently) 2.5 year old male cat. He's one of those cats that's always curious about what you're doing so it's hard to keep him off my repair desk.

His research here is in the 1901 Eaton's catalogue, conveniently open at the pocket watch section. I did some research, and a Canadian dollar of that time is about $40 dollars today.

So, a dollar watch - a funcional mechanical watch, cased, and ready to go would be $40, which is less than modern Chinese movements but not that much and the modern Chinese movements are much better than the unjeweled throw-away watches of that time.

At the other end, a 23 jewel railroad grade watch (specifically advertised at railroad workers) goes for $35, or $1400. Which seems to be good value for such a high-end precision instrument.

I love reading these old catalogues. Live was so different back then. But people still needed to know what time it was :)