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Five Overall Style Of Antique Clocks

Antique Clocks, as well as many antiques, are classified by their overall style. There are five overall kinds of styles of docks: Colonial, Empire Victorian, Modern, and Contemporary.

Colonial Clock-up to 1800; tall-case and wags-on-the-wall docks.

Empire Clock-1800-1840; mostly wooden work movements, shelf docks, and tall-case

docks. Movements were either 30-hour or 8-day. Victorian-1840 to 1890; the period of greatest production of docks and the greatest variety of models. Modern-1890 to 1940; a period of change from mechanical movements to clocks

with synchronous electric motors. Contemporary-World War II to present; great changes occurred, from the development of electric motors to docks with very accurate electronic (quartz) movements.

There are three primary kinds of docks: tall-case docks, wall docks, and shelf docks.

TALL CLOCKS.

Tall docks are usually called a grandfather clock due to a song of the same name that was popular in 1875. The term "grandfather" dock is now in general use, replacing the old terms, "tall," "hall," "floor," and "long-case" dock. When tall docks were popular they were referred to as a "new dock/' In those days a "new dock" was anything with a pendulum and a dock house, or case.

WALL CLOCKS.

Although the tall clock was the first timekeeper built in the colonies, the wall clock was the first truly American clock. The original and most popular wall clock was the small-case, elegant hanging timepiece called die "patent timepiece"-later called the banjo clock. It was made by Simon Willard of Massachusetts. In its day, it satisfied the American fantasies of luxury and refinement.

Later innovations were added to the wall clock. Craftsman from Connecticut and New Hampshire added a looking glass, thereby adding an additional function. Aaron Willard and Joseph Ives were the first to produce wall mirrored clocks.

SHELF CLOCKS.

By 1850, even the most fashionable wall clocks were replaced by cheaper shelf clocks. The Willards of Massachusetts designed and built the first Massachusetts shelf dock. It was very expensive and usually made-to-order. Affordable shelf docks came into existence when, in 1807, Eli Terry received an order to build 4,000 wooden geared movements. It took him over 2 years to complete the order; but his experiments building them helped him develop the first true mass-pro-duction factory in the country. This made shelf docks available to everyone.

In 1814, Eli Terry developed the most beautiful shelf dock ever built and manufactured in die United States. It was the very popular pillar and scroll shelf dock. Today originals of these docks are very expensive. This model was made in large quantities for many years and was copied by many other companies of die day.

It is said Chauncy Jerome, a carpenter working for Eli Terry at the time, is the person who actually made the first pillar and scroll dock case, although Eli Terry has always been credited with the clock.

About the Author

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