A Peek Into the Past: Antique Clocks

Hello everyone, this is Katherine Larson coming to you from the Plainsview Museum Main Street Boardwalk Exhibit. And today we are going to look at the old clocks in the museum today. We're going to have a very special guest with us, Bob Kuhl, who's going to show us about winding the clocks and a bit about how they work. And so we're going to go here into the clock slash jewelry store slash optometrist exhibit. Ready to go in? You bet. Welcome to the jewelry store. I'll start you first of all with the advertising signs. Very common with jewelry stores. And part of the jewelry stores was generally involving fixing clocks and also optometry. So that sign up there shows you the clock and then below it, it shows you the eyeglasses. So it would mean a combination that the business person did both of those optometry and jewelry and restored clocks. As we move down here and move in, you'll notice that it has the name McCray Jewelry was a Aurora business at one time. Another one is Hawthorne and Sons. And ironically, we are kind of blessed with the number of items that we have in our museum. As we enter the store here, I can show you the three advertising clocks that we've accumulated from the original businesses here in Aurora. Here's the Hawthorne and Son clock, the McCray Jewelry optometry clock, and the Fritz Hofer clock. All of those are part of the collection here that has been donated to the museum. As far as the jewelry store and the optometry part, generally in one corner of the store would be a section for the jeweler to work. He would work on both clocks and he would also work on jewelry at the same desk. When we move closer to the desk here, you'll notice that this little clock right here can show students exactly how a clock would run. The pendulum swings and you have the escapement wheel that goes every second right there. And that's what keeps your clock moving. Behind that clock on the wall is a large common wall clock. It's called a long drop regulator, hence it has the name regulator in it. And the uniqueness about that one is it runs for 30 days, so you only wind that one once a month. And that's part of my favorite of the group is because I have a number of 30-day ones in here. And it's a one-month winding option on those. When we move around the store here a little bit, on the top shelf up here are called mantel clocks. The black mantels are the three, two on this end and one on that end, usually quite ornate. And they are the most common that you find in Nebraska because they were, first of all, relatively reasonable in price. So the people out here on the plains could afford something like that. The next common would be what you see up here as the two smaller clocks. And that is what they call kitchen clocks in the collector world. And that also was fairly common out here on the plains of Nebraska. As we move down the line here on the clocks on the wall, this one here is called a picture frame clock. Made in France. And the little pendulum, you can't see it in here, but the little pendulum hangs from a silk string. And makes it relatively unique. And then up here on both corners here is a kitchen clock, but it's called a hanging kitchen. Where this one would be the shelf model and that would be the hanging model. As we move around the room here, along the top here, the oldest clock in the building would be the middle one right here. Generally most clocks were made in Connecticut for the most part, or Massachusetts. And that one has wooden works in it. And the problem with wooden works over the years, they will dry out. And the teeth will break off very easy. So a lot of them were not long runners for the most part. The little clocks that we see here in the middle are bedroom clocks. These are very common that were given away as gifts and found in individual rooms. Primarily for young girls, primarily is what they were given to. And then of course on each side of the display here is the jewelry. Which you would find in the store. Another, this one most people are familiar with is a cuckoo clock. These are mostly found, made in Germany, but found out here. Somewhat popular, but more in the more modern mode. And this one happens to be one of the older ones that you would find. As we move to the top here, the middle one along the top shelf here is called a triple decker. They were just very ornate, they're not any different than any other clock. They were just made a lot, much fancier. And the two on each side are the same. This one should have a mirror in it, or a picture. All three clocks run with a big single weight on each side. The issue with the weight clocks is they wear a little more rapidly over time. Because the weights in those were much heavier than probably they needed to be. This is an advertising clock, which was very common. This one of course would be the autometry part of the store. As you can see, you would have this style. In a barber shop, you would have a man with shaving cream and advertising razor blades, primarily. This is an advertising clock that generally you would find in, this happens to be the clothing store that we're in right now. Quite often they would be what we call in the trade, store regulators. And the unique thing would be the glass, the bottom glass. As you can see, this one is advertising hose. And so it's the ideal thing to have in the clothing store here. And so advertising clocks were somewhat popular, but not so much in Nebraska. You don't find them out here very rarely would you find one of those. You have to go back east pretty much to find them. These are statue clocks. And highly collectible, very ornate normally. Most of them would have, of course, the small clock in the center, but they would always have a statue. This one happens to be a double statue. And this one's called Music and Art. And they'd have different names depending on what the statue looks like. The big clock on the left here is, of course, a jeweler's regulator. You would find these in hotels, depots, once in a while maybe a store. But for the most part, these are the perfect timekeeper. And as you, I'll open this up and wind it, it hasn't been wound yet today. And as you look at this clock, this pendulum weighs 12 pounds. And the only thing missing here is it should have a little fancy thing right here in front of it to kind of cover this up. But for the most part, they're the perfect timekeeper. And as I wind this, you'll notice this weight will come up from the bottom. And the reason that they hung in jewelry stores called jeweler's regulators is because they were the perfect timekeeper. Because that weight always maintains the exact same amount of power to continue it running. And so if you check the time here, and I checked my time, it's about three minutes slow. Which is very unusual because usually this old clock is right on the money. And so we'll just make a little correction there and see what it does next week. See if it's ahead or behind. This happens to be a watchman's clock. And when I say watchman, it's for the individual that goes around in the evening to check all the stores to see that they are locked. And so I'll have you step outside here. And what happens is every door would have a key. And when the watchman would be coming around in the evening, he would check the door. And to prove to his boss that he had been here, then he would put this key in the slot, turn it a little bit of a turn, and it would punch a tape on the inside to tell the boss exactly what time he was at that store that night. And if they required them to be here two or three times a night, then this would tell them each time when he checked the lock on this door. And so that's why you would have outside the little box with the key. There's another one on the next door down here. And on down the line. These are the only two we have, but every store would have a little key at the doorway. Now we're in the barber shop and we're looking at a barber clock, commonly called that in the trade. And you'll notice on the dial or the face that the numbers are on backwards. And the reason for that was when you were sitting in the chair and looking in the mirror, getting your haircut and looking in the mirror ahead of us, you would find that the numbers are correct. And these are kind of hard to come by, but you do not find that many across the country. OK, now we'll take a look at the largest clock that we have in the museum. This is another jeweler's regulator like was in the jewelry store. But this happens to be called a standing jeweler's regulator and somewhat common. Again, you'll find more of them back east than you certainly will in Nebraska. And this particular clock is, I believe, ten foot four. I should remeasure it again. But I think and the dial on it is a little larger than most clocks. Also, it has like a 16 inch dial on it and that makes it somewhat unique. And then inside is the pendulum, which is also unique. I'll wind it so you can see the pendulum a little easier. Each side of the pendulum has two glass tubes. Originally, those glass tubes would have been filled with mercury. And mercury was the perfect compensator when the pendulum would swing. When the building warmed up, the mercury will swell a little bit. In the wintertime, the mercury will go down inside just a smidgen. And then it will also compensate as the pendulum goes back and forth. That mercury would elevate itself to the swing. This does not have mercury in it. I took the mercury out because it's so highly toxic. And what is in there now is steel shot. And then I took the steel shot and painted it somewhat the same silver color as mercury. To make it look somewhat original. Alright, well thank you so much Bob for showing us all this stuff about the museum clocks. Really fascinating. Now with that at this time, I think we are ready to start lighting the clocks in the museum. Are you ready? Okay, let's get underway. Music