Krafts Clock Repair

Mantle Clocks

Mantle clocks began in France around 1750. Very similar to chamber clocks, they are smaller and do not have carrying handles. Boston, Massachusetts, is where the mantle clock has its beginning in America. It was a clock maker by the name of Simon Willard, who fathered the design of early mantle clocks. Some of his many designs included a second hand, which was very rare in those early days of clock making. Some even had a calendar built into them.

Simon Willard’s clocks were mostly weight driven instead of spring driven and this enabled them to run for one week. Early spring driven clocks only ran for a day before rewinding was necessary. The striking mechanism was the rack and snail type, which allowed the clock to calibrate the strike according to the hour automatically, unlike the count wheel which the owner had to synchronize with the hour.

Willard’s clocks were not trendy however, with Eli Terry being the mainstream of the day in clocks. Today, a Simon Willard clock is highly valued among collectors however, with the lowest valued one being around $50,000 and the highest to date at $250,000. These clocks of course are in perfect original condition. Today, Seiko and Rhythm produce modern designs of these clocks.

Mantle clocks are really an American ingenuity, and touches not only upon the construction abilities of our country at that time, but also upon the creativity of the clockmaker, and the materials available at that time. After over 350 years, mantle clocks are still being produced worldwide, the only difference being in their battery driven movements and case materials of pressed wood and plastic.