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Author Topic: New clock Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 05-23-2004 05:14 AM                     I've always liked clocks. I found this one in the Alice shop in Oxford yesterday, I'm a bit old, but I couldn't resist it; it's just weird. When you think about it, the only thing actually wrong with this clock is that the numerals, and the text at the bottom, are priinted reversed; there's no real reason why a clock has to run clockwise. It has what seems to be a standard quartz movement, and I can't believe that it would be economic to make a special movement just for the very small number of these things that are made. Can a standard movement be easily reversed? Are anti-clockwise movements made as a standard item for some purpose? Is there some application where a clock would be vewed in a mirror? Is there anywhere in the world where clocks normally go that way? When the first mechanical clocks with hands were produced did they all go clockwise, or was this a standard that developed later? There's an interesting clock in Bristol; it has two minute hands set, I think, twelve minutes apart. One shows local time, and the other London time. It was only with the coming of the Railways that people could travel fast enough for these small time differences from place to place to be significant, and soon afterwards Greenwich time was standardiised across the whole country.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-23-2004 08:41 AM                     Steven, Nothing wrong with collecting clocks!! I had amased a large clock collection quite a few years back of close to 150 clocks!! Almost all of them were of the electromechanical type and were either self winding, or inpulse operated. Had I saved all of them today I could easily have retired off selling them as the value and scarcity of electromechanical clocks has skyrocketed. Some that I owned are clocks that you are undoubtedly familiar with such as Reifler, Synchronome, Gents Pulsnetic, Self Winding, Standard Electric, and many others. Although I don't have anywhere near 150 clocks today I have held on to quite a few of the rarer clocks, including one that I bought from Gord, and am still a member of the NAWCC. Mark  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 05-23-2004 08:43 AM                     On "Antiques Roadshow" I saw a clock with two faces, housed in an ornate wooden cabinet, that showed both railroad and local time in a city from the US midwest, from a period in the 19th C when time zones were not standardized. Your "Wonderland" clock suggests time running backwards, so that instead of "Grow old along with me The best is yet to be..." (Robert Browning) You have "Ah, but I was so much older then-- I'm younger than that now." (Bob Dylan) "And may you stay-- Forever Young" (B.D.) --Gerard  |  IP: Logged Daniel Alt Expert Film Handler Posts: 111 From: Lakewood, OH, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 05-23-2004 08:48 AM                     quote: Stephen Furley It has what seems to be a standard quartz movement, and I can't believe that it would be economic to make a special movement just for the very small number of these things that are made. Can a standard movement be easily reversed? Are anti-clockwise movements made as a standard item for some purpose? Is there some application where a clock would be vewed in a mirror? Is there anywhere in the world where clocks normally go that way? When the first mechanical clocks with hands were produced did they all go clockwise, or was this a standard that developed later? Not to seem dense, but couldn't you just take a standard movement and put it in backwards?  |  IP: Logged Greg Anderson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 766 From: Ogden Valley, Utah Registered: Nov 1999 posted 05-23-2004 09:13 AM                        Apparently, they used to put a lot of "backwards" clocks in barber shops so that as a patron was getting a haircut he could look into the mirror and see himself plus see a normal-looking clock. I've seen several novelty clocks using a "backwards" movement just to be weird. And you can buy a replacement, quartz movement for such a clock at www.klockit.com out of Wisconsin. I'm not sure about a U.K. supplier.  |  IP: Logged Jon Miller Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 973 From: San Diego, CA, USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 05-23-2004 09:33 AM                     Great link, Greg! I see they even offer inexpensive mechanisms that synchronize to the Fort Collins, CO, atomic clock signal (WWVB) to maintain perfect time. Now if you could get a reverse mechanism with atomic sychronization, that would be something!  |  IP: Logged John Walsh Film God Posts: 2490 From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way Registered: Oct 1999 posted 05-23-2004 10:34 AM                     A friend of mine is big into Glo-dial, makers of neon lit clocks. Larger ones were used in movie theaters during the 1940's to 60's,. http://www.neonclock.org/pages/Manufacturer/ManGloDial.htm  |  IP: Logged John Lasher Master Film Handler Posts: 493 From: Newark, DE Registered: Aug 2001 posted 05-23-2004 04:56 PM                        I saw a backwards running clock just the other day at Jokes 'R' Wild (a local costume/novelty shop).  |  IP: Logged Jeremy Fuentes Mmmm, Dr. Pepper! Posts: 1168 From: Corpus Christi, TX United States Registered: Jan 2004 posted 05-24-2004 06:42 AM                     People who collect clocks have way too much time on their hands. HAHAHAHA!!! Okay, maybe it wasnt that funny. Bad timing I guess.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 05-24-2004 11:36 AM                     Does that clock have anything to do with reversing the aging process?  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 05-24-2004 01:04 PM                     The thing about the Alice clock is that it's not going backwards. It's going anti-clockwise, but that's still forwards. When the photograph was taken it was showing about 10:27. An hour later it was showing 11:27, not 9:27. A map drawn with South at the top is not upside-down, it's just that we don't often see maps drawn that way. We don't normally see clocks that go anti-clockwise, but there's no reason why they shouldn't; it's just that, by convention, they don't. The numerals on this clock have been printed reversed, but they could have been printed normally, and as long as they are arranged around the face in the same direction that the hands turn, it's a perfectly reasonable clock, and it tells the correct time. Sometimes when you can't see the solution to a problem you need to look at the problem in another way; maybe this clock reminds us of that.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 05-24-2004 04:41 PM                     If clocks turned the other way, wouldn't they still turn clockwise?  |  IP: Logged Rob Butler Film Handler Posts: 91 From: Westford, MA, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 05-24-2004 04:51 PM                     Maybe that clock was actually made in the southern hemisphere, I know the toilets flush backwards down there, maybe the clocks run backwards too.  |  IP: Logged David Favel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 764 From: Ashburton, New Zealand Registered: Feb 2002 posted 05-24-2004 08:32 PM                     Yes, clocks do run backwards down here, also we all walk upside down. Some of our more affluent sosiety members have a device that attaches to their toilet to force the water to drain the correct way.  |  IP: Logged Ron Keillor Expert Film Handler Posts: 166 From: Vancouver, B.C. Canada Registered: Jul 2003 posted 05-24-2004 08:44 PM                     Maybe it's to be read in Arabic (right to left)?  |  IP: Logged

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