To be honest, I bought the first clock to sell. It’s a Welby anniversary clock, a brand I hadn’t heard of before, in brass and glass with a finial that resembles a spider. It’s sitting on a table in my living room with a few other clocks in need of repair and disposal.
Every time I pass the clock, I imagine it sitting on the mantle across the room. Sure, I’d have to move some of the African American memorabilia and other items cluttering the mantle. In fact, I’d have to move plenty of them, because this clock needed enough space to breath and be admired.
Last weekend, I created another dilemma for myself when I came across a different clock that would look dandy on the mantle, too.
First, the brass and glass clock, which had etching on two side panels and on a mirror on the inside back. It resembled the Kieninger and Obergfell Kundo clocks that come up pretty often at auction. I’d never seen the name Welby before, so I Googled. Like Kundo, Welby is a German-made 400-day anniversary clock. The Welby case is more angular in shape; most of the anniversary clocks I saw on the web had glass domes.
Both are torsion clocks because they use a twisting pendulum with small round weights to keep time. They are called 400-day clocks because they can run for nearly a year with one single winding. It is recommended, though, that they be wound once a month for accurate timing. They got the anniversary name around the turn of the 20th century when they were promoted as clocks for anniversary and wedding gifts that could be wound each year on that particular day, according to a 2010 article by Verlyn Kuhlmann, historian for a California chapter of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (NAWCC).
These types of clocks were first invented and patented in the United States in 1841 by Aaron Crane, followed by several other inventors, according to the article. They were patented in Germany in 1880 by Anton Harder, who also got a U.S. patent. He sold the patent a few years later and it apparently expired near the end of the decade, according to wikipedia. Other German firms eventually began to make the clocks. Here’s an early anniversary clock, maker unknown, in the NAWCC Museum.
Anniversary clocks gained popularity in the 1950s, according to a guide on the web. Most are now battery-operated like the one I have.
Just as I was mulling a decision about the brass and glass clock, I was at an auction over the weekend when I stumbled upon another clock that I loved. It was a wooden steeple clock by Ansonia. I’ve always loved the style of these clocks, whose tops look like a church steeple. But when they’ve come up for auction in the past, I was always outbidded.
Luckily, an auction company was selling this one off-site – away from its auction house and online bidders – for sellers who had once owned an antiques center. The sale included lots of glassware and a handful of clocks, including the steeple clock and a wooden gingerbread clock.
My eyes were on the steeple, with its painted design in the glass panel of a man on horseback with his hunting dog and the inscription “The Highland Chase.” When it came up for bids, I was secretly hoping that no one else wanted it as bad as me. For a while, one person halfheartedly bid against me until the bidding lingered for a few seconds at a ridiculously low price. Then another auction-goer decided that she wanted it, and the bidding resumed. I hung in there and still got the clock at a good price.
Later, one of the auction assistants came over and whispered to me that I’d gotten a good buy. That clock is worth about $300 or $400, he said. I’m not sure if it’s worth that much but I know that it’s worth a lot more than I paid for it.
I placed the clock in a large box in a chair next to me. Every now and then I’d look over at it, and it stared back as if it were willing me to keep it. It started looking better and better. The wood veneer was in great shape, only missing a small piece near the latch, and the image had some scratches. The clock still had its key and pendulum, along with the Ansonia label attached to the inside back of the case noting that it was a “Thirty Day” clock made in Connecticut. There was some paint missing on the dial, but that’s usually the case with these older clocks.
Because I love old clocks, I was familiar with the name Ansonia, which began making clocks around 1850. It was a well-known manufacturer, producing tons of different types of beautiful clocks – including porcelain and imitation gold clocks – over the next 70 years or so. It was one of only three clockmakers that exhibited at the New York World’s Fair in 1853 with its cast-iron clocks. The company was making more than 200 clocks and watches at the time, and business was booming. It later underwent hard times, and officially closed in 1929.
As I sat there at the auction, I realized that this clock would actually look good on my mantle. So should I keep the clocks? Do I need them both? It’ a tough decision. What would you advise?
