"Roman" Ansonia Clock , ca. 1874
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GUEST:
My husband's parents bought a house in Eugene, and there was a storage room under the house and behind the storage room, there was a crawl space. And in the crawl space there was a cardboard box, and in the cardboard box was this clock, although it was in poor condition when we first saw it. The wood was all gray and some of the paint was not there. My husband's parents took it to a man and had the restoration done on it, and the man who restored it offered to trade this clock, and he would give us another clock. But they decided to keep it, so we still have the clock.
APPRAISER:
What you have is actually a clock made by Ansonia Brass & Copper Company.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
And this clock was first catalogued I think sometime around 1874. This is a really unusual model. It's not a model that's easily found. They made several other models in more quantity. This particular example is unusual in that it has the round top, and it also has the round bottom. It is called The Roman. It's catalogued as a calendar clock, and the repairman that you used did really a wonderful job in restoring the wood and the finish, which happens to be rosewood, which is an exotic wood, but he forgot to replace the calendar hand. And there's a calendar hand that would be attached here. It would indicate the day of the month on the outside. In addition to that, there should also be the month in this lower screen here. All things which are very easy to put back into original order. It has this circular door, and it has a very colorful painted design, with this sort of alternating pinwheel in red and green, and, of course, the gold details are very, very nice.
GUEST:
Oh, it's beautiful.
APPRAISER:
And the center is left open so that you can view the pendulum when the clock is in motion. It really has everything going for it for a Connecticut wall clock. Do you have any idea what it's worth?
GUEST:
I'm hoping it's, you know, worth more than the cost of the repairs.
APPRAISER:
And that was roughly $100?
GUEST:
I think around $100 probably.
APPRAISER:
Well, I think that in today's economy, you would expect to see this clock in a retail outlet somewhere in the neighborhood of about $1,000.
GUEST:
All right! Yoo-hoo!
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