Images(6)

Movement for tall case clock

DateCa. 1780

Maker John Myer

OriginAmerica, Maryland, Frederick

Mediumiron, brass, and steel

DimensionsOH: 15 1/8"; OW: 13 1/2"; OD: 6"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1992-15,B

DescriptionThe clock features a thirty-hour, weight-driven tall case movement with an anchor-recoil escapement regulated by a seconds-beating pendulum. A rack-and-snail striking system sounds the hours on a bell. The eleven-inch cast-brass arched dial has cast-brass spandrels. The hour and minute hands are of blued steel, and there is a date aperture below the dial center.

The plates are of cast brass with all surfaces hammered, filed, scraped, and stoned. Four cast and turned brass pillars are riveted to the front plate and pinned at the backplate. The movement is secured to the seat board with hooks over the bottom pillars. The chain pulley on the timekeeping train great wheel is fixed, while that on the striking train is fitted with a brass click work, the clock using Huygen's endless chain system of drive. The tailed steel click is threaded into the great wheel. There is a riveted brass click spring. Some wheels are thicker than usual and have longer than standard epicycloidal teeth. The wheels have four-arm crossings and brass decorative collets. There are cut pinions and slightly convex arbors. The pallets are mounted on a decorative collet. The bent-wire crutch rod is not original. The back-cock is without steady pins. The pendulum has a round brass rod and a four-and-one-quarter-inch brass-faced lead bob. The pendulum nut for adjusting pendulum length is square brass. There is a German-pattern striking system, with the hammer located against the backplate and a combination hammer spring/counter. The four-and-one-half-inch bell is of a non-ferrous metal, possibly bronze, and the bell standard is screwed to the inside of the backplate. The motion work is taken from the extended front pivot of the great wheel arbor. All motion work wheels are uncrossed. The minute and hour wheel pipes are mounted on a start threaded into the front plate. The three-piece dial is made of very thin brass, and the arch and dial center are held together with thin steel strips riveted in place. Four cast and turned brass dial feet are pinned to the front plate. There are blued-steel hour and minute hands, the latter unusually long. The nine-and-one-quarter-pound cast iron weight is rectangular in cross-section and have a cast-in hole to receive the hanging hook. The cylindrical lead counterweight is 2 13/16” diameter x 1 1/16” high. It weighs 2 pounds and has a cast-in wire hook. The movement is driven with a (modern) chain that has a wooden weight pulley with a steel stirrup and a lead counterweight.

ProvenanceThe clock was purchased from Richmond, Va., antiques dealer Sumpter Priddy III. He had acquired the piece from Kemble's Antiques in Norwich, Ohio.

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