Paul Hogroian of Duplication Services at the Library of Congress sent me this 1942 photo that he scanned. It shows Mr. H. Ormand, jeweler in San Leandro, California, and his Westclox, Seth Thomas and Telechron clocks. Some of my favorite vintage clocks are here!

Mr. Ormand is holding a Westclox “Tide” windup alarm clock in a tan case. Westclox made this model from 1939 to 1941. Five Baby Ben style 5 alarm clocks and one Big Ben style 5 alarm clock are in this picture. Two “Shelby” style 1 are here, some “Bingo” style 2, and two partial views of the “Hustler”, not often seen (on the top, partially visible shelf).

Clocks in the Picture

Partially visible top shelf

Westclox Hustler style 1, Bingo style 2, Shelby style 1 brown, Bingo style 2, Bingo style 2, Hustler style 1, Bingo style 2, Bingo style 2.

Top shelf

I like the look of short clock, tall clock, etc. on this shelf. Note there are four identical ivory Baby Ben alarm (perhaps it was a best seller)!

Westclox Baby Ben style 5 ivory plain, Telechron “Attendant” brown 7H85 electric alarm clock, Baby Ben style 5 ivory plain, Telechron “Attendant” ivory 7H85, Baby Ben style 5 gun metal luminous, Telechron  “Attendant” brown 7H85, Baby Ben style 5 ivory plain, Big Ben style 5 Loud Alarm gun metal plain, Baby Ben style 5 ivory plain, Westclox Shelby style 1 ivory.

Second shelf

(Clock half shown) Seth Thomas “Vesta” electric time-only clock, Telechron “Fort” 5H61 electric time-only, Telechron “Resolute” 3H85, Telechron “Satellite” 5H59 time only clock with mirror in the center, Telechron “Melbourne” 3H83, Telechron “Embassy” 4F67, Thomas Deft-2.

Third shelf

(Clock half shown) Telechron “Supervisor” 7H107, Telechron “Secretary” 7H91, Telechron “New Telalarm” 7H93, Westclox “Andover”, Telechron “Secretary” 7H91, Telechron “Semester” CH7111, clock I can’t identify.

Wall

Seth Thomas “Spray” electric clock, Telechron “Kitchenguide” CH203.

Shelf below wall clocks

Telechron “Supervisor” 7H107, (clock partly shown) Telechron “Secretary” 7H91, Telechron “Cordial” 7H91, Telechron “Supervisor” 7H107, (clock partly shown) Telechron “Supervisor” 7H107.

Bottom shelf

Left – possibly an Ingraham electric mantel clock, Right –  Seth Thomas “Medbury – 2E” electric Westminster chime clock.

Thanks to Paul Hogroian for sending me this picture. It is from the FSA collection (Library of Congress), negative number LC-USW3- 001804-D.

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Here is a pretty Seth Thomas Adamantine mantel clock dated April 1902 on the bottom of the case (and “No. 633”). It has two celluloid half-columns on each side of the case. The Adamantine finish was mahogany color when new, but some of it has faded to orange.

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Repair job 6558. I did a partial overhaul including disassembling the movement, cleaning it and replacing both mainsprings (the time mainspring was broken, and the strike mainspring was a replacement that was too strong). Both new mainsprings are R & M 3/4 by .0165 by 120 inches. I also polished one pivot, installed one bushing, tightened the strike click rivet and straightened the bent arbor of strike gear no. 2.

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I repaired this pretty little Seth Thomas mahogany Adamantine mantel clock. It is smaller than many Adamantine clocks (I forgot to write down the dimensions), with no columns and a white painted metal dial. It is an 8-day clock that strikes the hour and half-hour on a heavy coil gong. These always have a nice, rich sound!

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Repair job 7434. The movement is model 89AL. I polished and lacquered the bezel, polished the pivots and installed 17 bushings. It has original mainsprings 3/4 inch wide and 0.0175 inch thick.

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Merritt’s Antiques offers the MS310 mainspring, designed for the Seth Thomas No. 89 movement.

The MS310 is specified as 3/4 inch wide by 0.016 inch thick by 108 inches long. Besides the Seth Thomas No. 89 movement, it is good for many other antique American movements that originally had a .0018 or .0017 inch thick mainspring.

Note: Some examples of MS310 spring are stronger than I would like, the Timesavers 15159 may be a better choice if you can get the copper rivet type. See New Batch of Timesavers 15959 Clock Mainsprings for more information.

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Here’s a Seth Thomas Cymbal #5 tambour mantel clock I repaired. This  8-day clock strikes bim-bam (two note strike) on the first, second and third quarter, and strikes the hour on the low note. The dark mahogany case is 9 1/4 inches tall and 20 1/8 inches wide. The minute hand is 2 5/16 inches long. The aluminum dial has printed numerals and minute track.

The instruction label on the back door says m-10-25, this may represent a date of October 1925.

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Repair job 7480. This clock has the No. 89K movement with a countwheel strike system that strikes quarter hours. I polished the pivots and installed 16 bushings. The strike mainspring was broken, and I replaced it with the Merritt’s Antiques MS310 mainspring, specified as 3/4 by 0.016 by 108 inches. The one I  installed actually measured 0.0167 inch thick. The original time mainspring is  0.017 inch thick.

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Here is a beautiful old Seth Thomas “World” drop octagon wall regulator I repaired recently. The oak case is 32 inches tall, with a 11 inch painted dial. The customer brought the clock to me because it had been damaged in shipping. I straightened the bent center arbor and replaced the glass in the bezel

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Repair job 7534. I polished the pivots and installed 9 bushings. This is the No 40 movement that runs 15 days on a winding. It is time-only and has two very thin mainsprings.

• Left mainspring: 3/4 by .0147 inch
• Right mainspring: 3/4 by .0158 inch

The Graham deadbeat escapement makes this movement run efficiently, so the thin mainspringsvsprings provide plenty of power but don’t cause excessive wear.

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Here a beautiful and uncommon Seth Thomas Adamantine mantel clock I repaired. The case color is gold flakes over brownish-green and is quite stunning in appearance. The case is 17 3/8 inches wide and 11 3/16 inches tall. The dial’s minute track is 4 1/4 inches in diameter and the minute hand is 4 1/4 inches long.

I removed the trim and polished the case. The Adamantine finish (celluloid over wood) almost always polishes very well.

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Repair job 7476. I polished the pivots, installed 12 bushings, and replaced the click rivets (to make the winding reliable). The original time mainspring is 3/4 inch wide and 0.0174 inch thick. I replaced the strike mainspring with a Merritt’s antiques MS310 – 3/4 by .0167 by 108 inch.

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I repaired this beautiful Seth Thomas Adamantine mantel clock. It has the date code 6019G (July 1906) on the bottom. The clock has black and green marbleized finish and four celluloid half-pillars. It is 11 1/2 inches tall and 17 1/8 inches wide (at the feet). The minute hand is 2 1/8 inches long. The beveled glass seems to be an unusual feature.

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Job 7035. I polished the pivots, installed 14 bushings, replaced the cracked strike mainspring with a Timesavers 15959 3/4 by 0.016 by 120 inches, and tightened the click rivets. The original time mainspring is 0.0172 inch thick, and the original strike mainspring was also 0.0172 inch thick. The movement is labeled “4 1/2” on the back, and is the same as the No. 89 movement.

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Here is a Seth Thomas Colton 2W mantel clock I repaired. It has an 8-day key wind movement and strikes the hour and half-hour. The 1940 Seth Thomas catalog shows this clock and gives the following description:

COLTON — 2E (Illus. left) $13.95
With self-starting electric movement. Strikes hours and half-hours on coiled gong of bell-metal.

COLTON — 2W $13.95
Same case fitted with 8-day pendulum movement. Announces hours and half-hours by rich chords on double rods.

“Graceful design plus careful blending of colors make the Colton a clock of unusual richness and charm. Cabinet is medium brown mahogany with contrasting front panels outlined in holly wood-color. 5 inch dial is in light ivory enamel with numerals and hands in deep brown. Fully polished sash. Height 8 inches. Width 17 1/2 inches. Depth 4 3/8 inches. Packed singly. Approximate shipping weight 8 pounds.”

The movement has the date code 4 40 (April 1940). The movement model number is 4505.

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Repair job 7722. These clocks usually have a lot of wear because the mainsprings are too strong. Thinner mainsprings will run the clock well and cause less wear. See 1940s Seth Thomas 8 Day Time and Strike Clock Movement for more information. This clock had bad wear in the front time mainwheel pivot hole. The original mainsprings were as follows:

Time: 11/16 wide by 0.0185 inch thick
Strike: 11/16 wide by 0.0181 inch thick

I installed new mainsprings, and left them 96 inches long. In the future, it will be better to shorten the strike mainspring to 80 inches long to make it easier to install and remove the clamp when disassembling and assembling the movement. I used the following mainsprings:

Time: Timesavers 20506, 11/15 by 0.0158 by 96 inches
Strike: Mile Hi Clock Supplies 11/16 by 0.0165 by 96 inches.

I polished the pivots, installed 22 bushings, and adjusted the escapement depth. After the clock was completed, the time mainwheel became hard to wind. I disassembled the movement, reduced the tension of the spring holding the arbor to the gear, and lubricated the arbor where it meets the gear.

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I repaired this Seth Thomas tambour mantel clock with Westminster chime. The label on the bottom calls it “No. 117 W Chime”. The dark mahogany case is 20 1/8 inches wide and 9 3/8 inches tall. The silver-plated brass dial has black printed numerals, minute track and lettering. The 8-day No. 124 movement has the date code 38-3 (March 1938) stamped at the upper left of the front plate.

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Repair job 7731. These No. 124 movements sure run well after repair, but they take a lot of work. I polished the pivots and installed 27 bushings! The lead pendulum bob weighs 3.2 ounces and is 1 5/8 inches diameter.

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Here’s another Seth Thomas mantel clock with No. 124 movement that I repaired, this one about 2 years ago. The mahogany case is 14 1/2 inches tall and 10 3/4 inches wide. The dial’s minute track is 5 3/4 inches outside diameter, and the minute hand is 2 29/32 inches long from center to tip. The chapter ring is engraved and filled with black paint (later ones are printed aluminum instead of engraved and silvered brass). This clock is from 1951 and has beautifully figured veneer on the door.

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Repair job 7194. When I received this clock, the gears didn’t turn freely, and the pivots were coated with a hard brown material. I’ve seen this several times – it is a dried lubricant of some type – possibly the “nano oil” that was sold as a “miracle” product several years ago. The brown deposit came off easily as each pivot was polished in the lathe.

I installed 36 bushings – this may be the most I’ve ever installed in any clock! The movement is dated 5101 (January 1951). The instruction label on the back door is dated 5104 (April 1951).

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This Seth Thomas Legacy 3E electric chime clock has a movement made by Hermle in Germany. (Seth Thomas quit making their own movements after a flood in 1955). Hermle continued with Seth Thomas’s design of using the motor to wind up mainsprings for the chime and striking. This clock is in a bracket style case 14 1/2 inches tall and 10 7/8 inches wide, with a 2 15/16 inch minute hand (center to tip).

The 1962 Seth Thomas catalog shows this clock (and the windup version Legacy-3W).

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Repair job 7622. I replaced gear T3 because it had been poorly repivoted. Bushing T3B was a screw-in bushing (an ugly thing and a poor repair job). I soldered it’s perimeter so it wouldn’t rotate, and installed a new bushing inside of it. I polished the pivots, and found a good replacement M4 motor. I disassembled and cleaned the motor, and lubricated the bearings with Molykote Light grease.

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This “Seth Thomas No. 90 Chime” has the No. 124 8-day chiming movement, and specially tuned chime rods that play the “Bugle” chime instead of Westminster. Some people have commented that they don’t like these chimes, but this is the way Seth Thomas made this clock. It was made around the 1920s.

See YouTube video to hear the chimes.

The tambour case is 21 3/16″ wide and 9 1/4″ tall. The minute hand is 2 5/16″ long. The dial is silvered brass with applied brass numerals.

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Repair job 9007. These No. 124 movements usually need a lot of bushing and pivot work, but they run very well when properly repaired. I polished the pivots, installed 27 bushings, and aligned the lock cam and correction pin.

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This Seth Thomas tambour mantel clock with quarter-hour striking was made around the 1930s. The case is 17 1/8 inches wide and 9.5 inches tall. The minute hand is 2 5/16″ from center to tip. The dial is aluminum with printed on numerals.

This clock strikes bim-bam once on the first quarter, twice on the second quarter and three times on the third quarter. On the hour it strikes the number of the hour on a single note.

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Repair job 7009. This movement, No. 89 L, says “PAT APPL’D FOR” at the upper left of the back plate. The strike mainspring is original and is a nice, thin 3/4″ x 0.0165″ spring. The time mainspring was a replacement made by “Usibel France” and was a too-strong 0.0182″ thick. I replaced it with an R & M 3/4 x 0.0176 x 120″ mainspring (note: this was back in 2017, now I recommend the German-made 11/16″ x 0.015″ by 108″ spring, such as the MS298 from Merritt’s).

I polished the pivots and installed 17 bushings. There was no wear to the strike mainwheel teeth, and the time mainwheel had only 3% wear, in spite of the very strong replacement mainspring. It probably didn’t run long after that previous repair job, thankfully.

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This Seth Thomas Medbury 6E was made in 1967. It has a tambour style case, is electric powered (plug-in) and plays Westminster chimes. The movement was made by Hermle in Germany specifically for Seth Thomas. The movement has date code 6613. 66 is the year (1966) and 13 may refer to the 13th lunar month of the year. The instruction label inside the back door has date code 6701 (year 1967 and either January or the first lunar month).

The 1968 Seth Thomas catalog shows this clock, in both electric and windup versions, retailing for $85.

In this movement (like in other Seth Thomas electric chime clocks) the motor runs the hands and also winds a small mainspring for the chime and another small mainspring for the strike). These two mainsprings are in little barrels, visible at the left and right of the second picture below. The mainsprings have brace ends that slide around the outside of the barrel when they reach a certain tension, so they aren’t overwound.

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Repair job 7788. I polished the pivots and installed 14 bushings. The mainspring barrels were full of graphite (yuck – please don’t use graphite on mainsprings!) They were a mess and took lots of cleaning. These mainsprings are very thin (.006 to .007 inch thick). I set them so the braces would slip after 8 turns of winding for the strike, and 10 turns for the chime. It is impossible to get an exact setting (by bending the brace inward or outward) but you want the mainsprings to slip in the barrel before being wound tight, to avoid putting too much load on the motor. On the USA made versions of this movement, I typically set the springs to slip at around 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 turns, because the mainsprings are stronger than the ones in this movement.

This clock’s motor is the M5, sealed capsule type. The capsule contains all the gears of the motor, and is detachable from the field coil.

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This “Plymouth” round top mantel clock (made by Seth Thomas) is 9 3/4″ tall and 8 3/4″ wide. The minute hand is 2 1/2″ from center to tip. It has a mahogany case with a lighter color veneer panel at the bottom, and a printed metal dial.

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Repair job 8727. As mentioned before, this type of movement has very strong mainsprings that cause severe wear. The movement is model 4501, and the original rear movement plate has a date of 3 40 (March 1940). The wear was so severe, and a previous repairer had installed some bushings off-center, that I bought a parts movement from eBay and ended up using the front and back plates, time and strike mainwheels, and time second wheel. A previous repairer had filed the gear pivots tapered (on gears T4, T5, T6, and S3 through S6) so I filed them parallel and burnished them.

The escapement is deadbeat with diamond-shaped steel pallets set into a nickel-plated brass body (like the No. 124 chime movements of this period).

I installed 19 bushings, and replaced the mainsprings with much thinner ones. I inserted new mounting grommets with brass sleeves in the four holes that mount the movement to the case.

The original mainsprings:

Time: 11/16 x 0.0182 to 0.0185″
Strike: 11/16 x 0.0183″

The new mainsprings are Merritt’s MS298 11/16 x 0.0155 x 108″, shortened by 22″. They are supposed to be 0.015″ thick, and previous examples I had measured 0.015, but these measure 0.0155. No big deal. Even thinner mainsprings would work, as the strike runs plenty fast, and the pendulum makes a very good motion! I hope these thinner springs will significantly reduce future wear, compared to the original thick ones. One thing about these German made mainsprings, is that the way they are tempered (or whatever they’ve done), they are very strong compared to other mainsprings for a given thickness, and the repairer must be careful not to install mainsprings that are too strong.

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This Seth Thomas chime clock has a walnut case with burl panels. It uses the No. 124 movement, and was made around 1928. The 1928 Seth Thomas catalog shows it. The movement has date codes of 4804 (April 1948) and 3 52 (March 1952) and I believe that those are dates that Seth Thomas repaired it.

Height 12 1/8 inches, width 9 7/8 inches, minute hand length (center to tip) 2 5/16 inches. The dial is engraved and silvered brass, with applied numerals.

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Repair job 8627. Someone had plier-marked the strike first wheel shaft, so I replaced it, keeping the original gear. I polished the pivots and installed 26 bushings! I straightened a bent tooth on the chime first gear. The hammer banking springs were pitted, and that caused the hammers to stick and not move freely. After polishing out the pits and shaping the springs properly, the clock chimes well.

I replaced the missing pendulum (the new one weighs 5.2 ounces). A Hermle #3 key fits the winding arbors, and I supplied a watch key #1 for regulating. This movement does 10584 beats per hour.

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Here’s a Seth Thomas walnut cased parlor clock I repaired. It is not listed in the known Seth Thomas catalogs, but is called “Unlisted No. 1″ in Tran Duy Ly’s Seth Thomas Clocks book. It is 21 7/16″ tall and 14 3/8” wide. The date code 0981H (August 1890) is on the back of the case.

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Repair job 8770. I polished the pivots and installed 11 bushings. The mainsprings are original:

Time mainspring: 11/16 x 0.0185 inches
Strike mainspring: 11/16 x 0.0185 inches

Even though they are on the thick side, they have caused only minor wear to the mainwheel teeth. This may be because old springs are not as strong as newer ones. Or, the old brass could be stronger. Or, the clock was not used for much of its life. I tightened the click rivets, secured the pinion wires with Locktite, and closed the pallets to reduce the drop into the exit pallet. The minute hand was a replacement that didn’t match the hour hand, so I found a new spade to install. The movement has four gears in the time train and five in the strike train. Earlier 8 day movements had four gears in each train, and later ones had five in both.

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I recently repaired this “Seth Thomas Metals No. 3” oak shelf clock made around 1900. I overhauled the movement and did a little veneer patching.

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Repair job 8667. The pinion wires had a lot of wear, and so I replaced the wires in 6 pinions. I polished the pivots and installed 18 bushings.

The mainsprings are the originals:

Time Mainspring 3/4 x 0.018″
Strike Mainspring 3/4 x 0.0175″

The movement is the No. 89, but made before they called it that, and it is stamped 8 1/4.

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Seth Thomas made this tambour mantel clock that says “Plymouth” on the dial. Seth Thomas marketed clocks under the Plymouth name around the 1930s and 1940s. The movement is Seth Thomas movement No. 89IL dated 36 10 (October 1936). It strikes bim-bam on each quarter-hour (one, two or three times) and at the hour strikes the number of the hour on a single gong. The dial is aluminum and the case is mahogany veneered.

The following two Plymouth catalogs show this clock:

https://clockhistory.com/0/seth-thomas/document-997-1.html

https://clockhistory.com/0/seth-thomas/document-7559-1.html

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Repair job 8760. I didn’t do a full overhaul on this clock, just a disassembly and cleaning, burnished one pivot and installed two bushings. The escapement, strike point and hammers needed adjusting.

This movement has rack and snail striking (see picture two above) instead of the usual (for American clocks) count wheel striking. A cam on the center arbor lifts one hammer as the hour approaches, and lets it down afterward, so the hour strikes on one just one hammer. The third picture above shows the hammer that is out of action at the hour.

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