This is a question that someone in our show booth asked every once in a while, and it always threw us a bit. To us, every clock is an individual, no two alike, but the question demonstrates that much of the world doesn't see clocks and other antiques with the same eyes dealers do. Subtle differences of form, construction, and decoration are often quite transparent to someone who might be willing to spend a significant amount of money to fill a space in their home with an antique longcase clock, and those subtleties have a direct bearing on what the price is for that clock. The proper reply, as indeed for all antiques, is that the price is determined by the three factors of age, quality, and condition. |
Age
The first longcase clocks in England, where the form was born, were produced about 1660. Spring-wound table clocks and weight-driven wall clocks had been made for a couple of centuries prior to this, but they were not particularly reliable timekeepers and it was the invention of the long pendulum in 1657 (requiring a long case) that created a breakthrough in accuracy, and coincidentally ![]() ![]() As the decades rolled by, production expanded. Longcase clocks became more widely available and were less of a novelty, and ways were found to bring the cost of a clock down to meet a wider market. The younger the clock, the lower its price today. No surprises there. With a bit of informed research, it is usually possible to assign a date to a clock within a 10 to 15 year range from its major design features alone. At the time any clock was first made, the fashion of the day determined the form and decoration of its three major components, case, dial, and movement. Each component still carries reliable indicators of the era in which the clock was designed to be as appealing as possible to its initial owner, just as was the furniture, fabrics, porcelains and silver of the time. The clock above left was made about 1685. It is in a walnut case, with a slim trunk, long door, small bun feet. The features of the brass dial, the twisted hood pillars, and lenticle on the door are typical of this early period. Some 175 years later, the clock at the right was made to meet the Victorian tastes of the mid-19th century. Note the short trunk door and the bright factory-painted dial with large numerals, both typical of the later period of clock production. |
Quality In the earliest periods, the best cases were
veneered in highly figured walnut or even ebony, an exotic import. Many
hours of craftsmen's time went into Better dials were beautifully engraved or skillfully painted by highly paid specialists, but some very inexpensive painted dials or simple provincial brass dials were produced quickly with flat and inartistic decoration. Better movements offered something extra, but again they took more time and engineering skill to produce. Some clocks need winding every day, but for a higher price your clock could run a week or a month or even a year between windings. Almost all have seconds and calendar dials, but a small percentage also have moon dials that let you know when there will be more light for traveling; or tidal dials that tell you when high tide will be in your local bay so that your ship can sail. There are movements that play musical tunes, and ones on whose dials rocking figures move in time with the pendulum. Even among all the mechanical exotica, there are different levels of workmanship. Extra effort and sophistication in the making of a clock added to the value originally, and so they do today. |
Condition
To the right, an honorable but later and more commonly found Victorian painted-dial clock. Now hypothetically if the brass dial were to become separated from its case and were put into the later case, it would look like left, below. It looks attractive, but the dial and movement were made about 70 years before the case was, and anyone who knows how clocks evolved could tell you this at a glance. The short door on the case is 1840's, the brass dial is 1770's. Other more subtle clues exist. A close look at the wooden mask framing the dial would show that the lower corner spandrels are covered by the mask, and there are gaps at either end of the dial arch.
With the hood off, the last doubt is removed (see above center): on the sides of the case, there are thick blocks holding up the seatboard (which supports the dial and movement) so that the dial mask will fit as well as it can. The picture above right shows the proper fit for the seatboard that actually belongs in the case. Marriages in clocks are common, but that doesn't make them any more legitimate or acceptable in the antiques world than marrying the top and bottom of a two-part piece of furniture. The practice of mating unrelated dials and cases has long been defended on the grounds that it allows antique components to survive. Be that as it may, from a specialist dealer's standpoint the result is a kit of unrelated parts and not worth paying for. A marriage is a marriage is a marriage, and no amount of creative defense is going to put the original parts back together again. Another of our problems with the practice is that the buyer is almost never made aware that she or he is paying far over the fair value for such defective goods. One of the most dismal aspects of dealing in clocks is having to explain to people that the clock they bought many years ago to finance their retirement is simply a collection of parts with very little antique value. So there it is. Why do some clocks cost more than others? The more expensive ones are the earlier ones with high-quality cases, dials, and movements, and they're in as good condition as proper, sensitive care and restoration can make them. As dealers, we hope the differences are obvious, but then, a bug is a bug to everybody but an entomologist.
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