Seth Thomas Ogee

[Ben_hutcherson]

The Ogee style clock was uniquely American, and was something of a mainstay for the American makers for the latter half of the 19th century. They were accurate and durable clocks, but more importantly were made with interchangeable parts(to allow easy maintenance), and perhaps most importantly were affordable by the average family. As such, they were made by the millions by most of the major American makers. The earliest ones had weight-driven wooden movements, later ones had weight driven brass movements, and still later ones had spring driven movements. Weight driven movements were commonly 30 hours, or much less commonly 8 days.

My Ogee was made by Seth Thomas. As per one website, this exact case style was only used from 1860-1862. The 30-hour brass movement in mine is marked "Seth Thomas Plymouth, Conn", indicating it was made before 1865.

Despite being the oldest of the half dozen or so pendulum clocks I look after, it's easily the most accurate. Provided that I remember to wind it every day, it keeps time to within a minute a month-this is no doubt due to the fact that it's weight driven. Mine strikes on the full hour.

Many of these originally had hand-painted artwork on the lower tablet over the pendulum. Unfortunately, that's long gone on mine-although both the glasses on mine obviously old glass. Mine also lacks the original dial, which would have been painted tin(these are often found in poor condition today).

Ogees are a great and inexpensive way to get into collecting old American clocks. There's enough variety in them-and enough obscure manufacturers-to keep a collector busy for years.

[John MS]

Lovely Seth Thomas clock. I enjoy a Boardman and Wells column and splat with a wooden works that is similar in some respects to yours. My ogee is a Forestville 8 day from about 1850. I believe you are right about how popular the ogee was. I have seen them dated from the 1840's through the late 1890's.