SAN FRANCISCO, Ca., November 6 — Your alarm clock might be functional, but your living space might need some nicer touches. And maybe you’re about as punctual as a snail on fresh-tarred asphalt and could use a little reminder from time to, um, time. Better tape up the ancient Velcro on that snappy wristwatch, right? Wrong.
How did clerics, astronomers, and sailors help keep you on task? In the Beginning. How old are clocks? Old enough to have used sun, water, and sand as measuring devices. The ancient Egyptians came up with mercury as another marker, and by the 9th century A.D. the most primitive mechanical clock had been designed.
By the 13 th century, astronomical clocks put the theory of mechanical time keeping into use (and had to be adjusted daily), and a couple of centuries later, spring-driven mechanics had thrust booming clock industries into present-day Germany, Switzerland, and France. You can thank either Christiaan Huygens or Galileo (pick your genius) for inventing the pendulum mechanism in the 17th century, when the second hand started inching its way across clock faces everywhere. And you can thank European governments for offering prizes based on longitudinal accuracy, which demanded far more precise timekeeping and the desired result of fewer ships lost at sea. The father of modern-day timekeeping was Scottish clockmaker Alexander Bain, who patented the electric clock — whose mainspring was wound by electric motor or electromagnet and armature — in 1840 and followed that breakthrough a year later with the electromagnetic pendulum.
Innovations
Electromagnets there may have been, but the minor little 20th-century discovery of electricity put time in a whole new, mechanism-free dimension. Suddenly quartz crystals and tuning forks could take the timekeeping place of larger, more cumbersome springs and pendulums, and clocks became just as sleek and stylish as you pleased. Result: they’re everywhere (walls, desks, mantels, tables, floors, and so on) and available in any style or shape.
What’s In It For You?
Type. Grandfather. Cuckoo. Floor. Anniversary. Desk. Mantel. Pendulum. Table. Wall. As for design and construction and such, you’d better just see for yourself.
Tradition. We’re not going to use "timeless" to describe our selection of the classics, but let’s just say our catalog of grandfather, mantel, cuckoo, and pendulum wall clocks might have you making up stories of harvest season in the Bavarian wheat fields.
Technology. Wind ’em if you wish, but you can also choose to forget all those stopped-clock adages and take advantage of some modern advancements (even atomic radio signals).
Timekeeping. Duh.
Meet your match:
There’s pretty much an endless stream of terrible chronology-related puns we could tick off (oops) but time’s a-wastin’ (our apologies) so we’ll just sift through our vast catalog and chime in (please excuse us) with our favorites:
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