Antique Clocks

The days when you had to look at the sun dial in order to guess the time are over and have been for years. Time had always been measured region-by-region and town-by-town according to the sun's passage. In the mid 19th century hundreds of local time zones spread their way east to west across American. This was easy enough to adapt to in the stagecoach days when long journeys took weeks or months to complete. From an antique collectors' standpoint, one of the interesting aspects of this period are surviving products that were produced to lessen some of this confusion. Market-oriented companies like Ingersoll produced pocket watches with multiple hands displaying both the "old time" and the new time on them. One of the most popular antique clocks is the Grandfather clock. Most antique grandfather clocks tend to fall into two categories, 8 day and 30 hour, although you will occasionally come across the exception that has a one month, three month, six month or even a twelve month movement. Normally this is because of the extra gearing involved, a clock that goes for a month or more will wind anti-clockwise whereas an eight

day clock winds clockwise. A standard 8 day grandfather clock has two winding holes in its dial to facilitate its two weights and is only wound with a key. As you look at the clock from the front, the weight on the left hand side is responsible for making it strike and the weight on the right hand side is responsible for making it go. Some people like collector John Shone believe that an 8 day clock is really a one week clock which allows you an extra day to wind it should you forget or are not available to wind it at the designated time on the designated day. In addition to the brass or painted dial, antique grandfather clocks will often have other features like seconds and date dials.