On one site this watch came up as a topic as being one of "dem dar common watches"! So with an incredible amount of shame I am posting this Elgin grade 360 Veritas that I picked up lately. I have been looking for one for some time and this one has a bit of history and is in good to very good condition.
I have it's lower jewel brother the BWR 17j grade 361 so maybe one of these days I will be able to get it's bigger brother the Veritas grade 350.

Looks pretty good to me!

This is the smaller brother grade 361(below), On the Veritas 360 it cleaned up nicely and looks better after I tossed the yellowing plastic crystal that was outgassing a bit that the hands have a little discoloration on the tips. Other than that and probably needing a COA to tune it up it is a nice looking watch. Someone told me I used my luck up for the year since I picked this one and a nice 20j Elgin 149 about the same time both at decent prices.

Gee Claude that watch would look awful nice in my watch cabinet and then you wouldn't be embarrassed by such a common watch! Very nice Claude!

Deacon, I guess I was a bit miffed by the comment, I feel it is hard to make a hard/fast number based on production to say what is common or uncommon since some brands survived at a high rate than others because they were thought to be more collectable and some jewel counts survived at a higher rate than others because they were considered more collectable.

Some grades that were made in similiar production numbers appear to show up at higher or lower rates than the the other if you are looking for them on ebay, or that is at least what I notice.

When you search ebay using a decent search and find a page full of matches to the grade you are looking for then it is common.

Do the same search for some grade one week, no matches, a week or two later, no matches, and do this for a year or so and only see maybe two matches then I consider that grade uncommon.

In the case of the Elgin veritas the pecking order appears to be, I would have to check to see if I missed a grade.
1-239
2-214 close second
3-453
4-376
5-270
6-375
7-274 hunter
8-360
9-350

Claude, is your list in order of most common 1st, or least common 1st?

Most common first, the 453 and 376 show up about the same rate and I think they are made in about the same numbers. I think the 270 3 finger Veritas shows up about the same and slightly more than the 375. Over the last year I have seen about 3-4 274 Veritas marked hunters but in that same time only 2 360's and I think last year I saw 1 350 even though the 350 and 360 were made in the same numbers. In some cases it may be that some people cling to the 350 a bit tighter.

Claude, That sure is a shameful watch with that awful Montgomery dial and all!Just kidding...You have a nice bunch of Elgins, that's for sure.Any idea why they used that style plate layout, that seems to have been mostly used for lower grades?Did they make a Father Time like that?I've never seen one.I really like that 17J BWR...Ted.

Ted you could make a valid point that Elgin had hedged its bet on the 18 size RR watch and got a late start on a RR watch for the 16 size.

If you look back at it Elgin only had 21j grade 270 and the 17j grade 280 which were the 3 finger bridge lever set versions. If you look at the movement below (grade 342) this would be Elgin's first true non-bridge 3/4 style 16s RR watch that was a lever set. Probably Elgin was searching for a design since the 350/360/361 were all limited runs, each only 1000 each.

With all the politics in the early 1900's the grade 342 was only adjusted to 3 postions so it would not be accepted for all railroad lines. All of the 350/360/361 were adjusted to 5 positions.

I don't think anyone would call any of this series as a mid-level grades, maybe there were a stage to work out getting them adjusted to 5 positions.

I don't recall the Father Time name being used for 16 size watches until you got to the grade 373/374 and there were also a few grade 375's marked Father Time.

Thanks Claude!

Ted if you ever get the chance pick up the grade 361 BWR, they don't turn up that often but they are definitely high grade movements. I had a spare one that I sold over a year ago at Christmas time and it went for $360.