Thomas Wagstaffe Musical Bracket Clock, ca. 1770
Watch
GUEST:
The clock was given by my English great-great-great-great- grandfather to his daughter Sarah in 1784. It went to one of the women in each generation.
APPRAISER:
This clock was made by Thomas Wagstaffe. He was born in 1724 and he died in 1802. He was from Oxfordshire, England, and he was a Quaker and a fantastic English clockmaker. One of the best, really. He's known as a very large man and very personable, and had a lot of acquaintances and a diligent worker, and obviously very skilled. But this is a very special bracket clock. It's musical, and it was made circa 1770. It's, has a great dial. It's signed here, "Thomas Wagstaffe, London." It has a subsidiary dial for shutting off the strike.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
The chime. And then this is the four tunes select. The tunes are often the personal selection of your relative. They would be able to select a tune on their musical taste. So these might very well be tunes that were dear to them. I'll show you the back, which is just fantastic. It has its original cow-tail pendulum. It's got these foliate engravings throughout. It plays on a nest of bells. Everything about it's original. The condition is fantastic. Musical clocks like this are fairly rare and very sought-after, because anything with complications is very desirable. This clock, the retail value would certainly be around $20,000 to $25,000.
GUEST:
Now I've got to be brave enough to actually wind it and get to listen to it again.
APPRAISER:
Well, I'll play it. (chiming) (chimes playing tune) It's beautiful.
GUEST:
Yeah.
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