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Presented today is a Sonora Chimes mantel clock, model no. 57, manufactured in 1914 by the Seth Thomas clock company out of Connecticut, USA. My wife and I found this during our regular visits to a Montreal flea market exactly one week ago.
One of ST's most popular Sonora models, the no. 57 features a large mahogany tambour case, fronted by a six-inch dial with painted Arabic numerals. This particular example was originally sold by Henry Birks and Sons, a highly reputable Jeweler out of Quebec, Canada, which is still in business today. Indeed, the name Henry Birks and Sons is stamped on the dial, and the back of the clock is engraved with more information, though my wife and I have not been able to figure out what it says.
The Seth Thomas Sonora clock is a rather unique design in early 20th-century domestic clock history. While this is a quarter-hour chiming clock, it does not have a single three-train movement. Rather, there are two separate movements in the clock, which work together to run the time, chime, and strike elements. First, there is a spring-powered, pendulum-driven, time and strike movement, which runs for eight days on a winding. Behind that movement is the Sonora unit, which is a spring-powered, single-train chiming movement. Projecting from the time and strike movement are two levers. One of them trips a lifting piece within the Sonora movement every quarter hour, making it play progressively longer segments of the Westminster movement, on four exquisitely beautiful-sounding bronze bells. At the top of the hour, the Sonora movement plays the full tune. As it does so, a detent moves forward, until it eventually lifts the second lever projecting from the time and strike movement. This initiates the strike sequence, which strikes the number of hours on all four bells. All in all, this is a fairly fiddly clock, and sadly quite worn at present. However, it looks and sounds great, and it is still quite exciting to add another Sonora to the clock family!
21 окт 2024
