Ansonia Tower Clock | M.S. Rau

Hi, I'm Emily. I'm a researcher here at MSRAL and today I'm excited to share with you this incredibly rare 1895 Ansonia four train tower clock. Now Ansonia made some of the world's most beautiful tabletop timepieces, but they made very very few four train tower clocks like this. And by very few I mean we know of about three that exist in the world and none quite so beautiful as Something of this magnitude keeps time on an industrial scale and it would have been in a community's most important building like a courthouse, a schoolhouse, a church. This specific timepiece was actually stored in a basement underneath a jewelry store. Now that's important because if this clock was kept in a tower you would see a lot more wear and tear on the mechanisms and the paint, but everything about this clock is perfectly precise and pristine because it was kept in such a cool dark space. So what we have here is a pendulum. It's 100 pounds. Now the surface face was looked at only by the person keeping care of the clock making sure it was 100 percent precise. This is a deadbeat escapement. It was invented by John Graham. This, at least at this time 1895, was one of the more popular escapements used for tower clocks. It was dependable because it kept time perfectly and there wasn't a lot of room for error. Right here we have this 60 hole wheel. This keeps time with the minutes and you can adjust it by pulling this knob and as you see all the other gears move with it. So this is the illumination wheel. It is one of the rarest features of this incredible timepiece. The illumination wheel actually turns on and off the clock face seen by the public depending on the different sunrise and sunset times throughout the year. Exuding the elegance for which Ansonio was so celebrated, this masterful timepiece is only improved by its incredible size and color.