Antique Clock Collecting: Clocks in Stereoscope Images

Video Transcript

"In many collecting areas, there's related ephemera, or paper advertisement related photography, things like that that deal with that hobby. I've, for a long time, also enjoyed collecting stereoviews, and soon came to realize that there were many stereoviews that had clocks in the images, which allows you to see many of the antique clocks we collect now when they were new, and used just as part of the background, or part of the scenery within the scene. I, not long ago, did an article for the magazine of our collector's association that we'll talk about a little later, and included several clock related stereoviews in that article. Again, some of them are really of interesting importance to collectors, because they show, in this case, the Howard Clock Company's display in an exhibition years ago showing what their product line was then. This also shows the shop of William Bunn, the chronometer maker, whose chronometer I showed you a while ago. This is on the top of Mount Washington, an observatory there with a nice regulator in the window, and this was particularly important, because this is an early tower clock movement which I didn't know, but it turned out from other researchers, turned out to have been the movement that was inside the tower of Independence Hall until then Centenniary in eighteen, the centennial celebration eighteen seventy-six, in which a new set Thomas movement was put in at the time. So, that's the only known photograph of that movement. That movement has been found, and will return new, to Independence Hall Park, and now they have a picture of it. These are just a couple other examples of stereoviews viewed through this type of viewer to give you a three-D effect. Just again, showing clocks in the background, there was a series called Bliss that had a amorous young couple that fell asleep in the parlor, and in subsequent images show the parents arriving home and being irate, thinking that they were doing something inappropriate in the parlor at that very late hour, showing on the clock in the image. There's also other humorous ones, often a barber shop image. But, in a genre kind of setting you see this a lot, but taken by different photographers showing a different clock in the background, in this case, an Anglo-American clock. So, it's fun to find clocks you own in, in related ephemera, and other related collecting area, which adds to the enjoyment of this kind of collecting experience."