Collecting
Antique Clocks A Beginner's Guide to
Lantern Clocks
4. Lantern clocks converted
to spring-driven mantel clocks.
These are a quite different
category where only the external shell or cage
survives and the entire original movement was
replaced, usually in the late 19th century,
by a completely new spring-driven mantel clock
movement, exactly the same as in a new bracket
clock of the day. This made such clocks into
eight-day duration with two hands. The feeling
at the time was that this action preserved the
outward antiquity but gave the clock internally
a modern clockwork motor. These clocks are a
quite separate category and are dealt with elsewhere.
These spring-driven conversions used to be despised
(fifty years ago), but in recent years have
found a serious revival of interest amongst
collectors. It is increasingly realised that
the work of some of the rarer lantern clock
makers survives only in the form of spring conversions,
without which their work would be totally unknown,
and we would know nothing about them but their
names. So ironically what was once thought of
as their destruction has in fact proved their
only historical survival.
This illustrated
article is divided into several sections: click
on each link to navigate through it.
Copyright
© 2003 Brian Loomes more articles by Brian Loomes on collecting antique clocks
|
