French Industrial Steam Boiler Clock, ca. 1885
Watch
GUEST:
It was my father's. His uncle had given it to him years ago. My uncle worked for a railroad, and I researched it, and I couldn't find what railroad he worked for. And was either the president or the vice president, from my understanding, from what my mother told me, and that this was given to him as a retirement gift…
APPRAISER:
Nice.
GUEST:
…From the railroad. But I really don't know, and that's why I'm here today, to find out.
APPRAISER:
Well, it's nice, it's a – it’s a beautiful clock. These are called French industrial clocks, and it's a whole series. There's a couple examples that they make with a lighthouse that spins around. There's a captain on a quarterdeck that turns a wheel back and forth.
GUEST:
Neat.
APPRAISER:
But they're all very similar with their design and setup, but they all have automation. They're almost like a toy and a clock.
GUEST:
So at one time all this worked? Everything moved, and…
APPRAISER:
That's right. You have an engine up here at the top, you have this flywheel, and you have a governor over here that spins around. So all this happens, and you wind it up with a clockwork mechanism inside that runs this independently, and it runs it for several hours. But the clock will actually run for the entire week, it'll run for eight days on a wind. It has this great base here, this is a brass base, and then there's a marble base underneath it.
GUEST:
It's very heavy.
APPRAISER:
They're really whimsical clocks and quite popular right now.
GUEST:
It’s - It makes me think of steampunk things that people hodgepodge together.
APPRAISER:
It's very true, and I think that's one of the reasons why they're becoming so popular. There's really a… an uptick in the market for clocks like this. This was made circa 1885. This clock does need some restoration, however. The dial is in pretty rough shape. Probably needs to have the numerals strengthened. And the barometer needs some repair as well. One of the things that I discovered with my colleague: that it's missing the clockwork mechanism that provides the power for all this automation at the top.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
So that affects the value quite a bit. In this current condition, a clock like this is probably valued at $3,000 to $4,000.
GUEST:
Wow! Wow.
APPRAISER:
If it were perfect, it would be a clock that would retail for as much as $12,000.
GUEST:
How do you go about restoring something like that?
APPRAISER:
The dial's restorable and the barometer's certainly restorable, not a big deal. Finding the right mechanism to drive the automation might be a bit of a challenge. It could be a real needle-in-a-haystack find.
Appraisal Details
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