Longcase clock – a pendulum clock tall enough to stand on the floor e.g. a grandfather or grandmother clock.

Longcase clocks first started to appear around 1660 ......

Longcase clocks first started to appear around 1660; they were weight driven and struck the hours on a bell. There were quite a few variations of the longcase; the simpler types were single handed with 30 hour movements, generally only one weight was used to drive the time and strike and they were usually cheaper to make. Thirty hour longcases are easy to identify as they don’t normally have winding holes in the dial but are wound by opening the door and pulling the rope or chain. Today, unless you find a very early example or one by a well-known maker, they are still easy to find at a reasonable price.

Eight day longcase clocks are the more sought after; in today’s busy lifestyle, not many people like to wind their clocks up every day! The 8 day longcase has two weights which are wound through the dial, one for the time and the other for the strike.

Another form of longcase in high demand is the regulator clock. These are known as shop or floor regulators. They are usually single weight time only, with features such as temperature compensating pendulums, e.g. grid iron or mercury, maintaining power and dead beat escapements. I recently attended a clock auction in Melbourne where the three highest prices were obtained by these types of longcases.

The price of a longcase clock is usually higher according to the number of features it has. They can have phases of the moon, days of the month, seconds dials and chiming features that can play many different tunes. I recently sold a longcase that had moon phase, seconds, day of the month, month of the year and day of the week, so they are available and not beyond the reach of the average collector.

Value can also be affected when a longcase is a ‘marriage’ (when the movement and case have been changed). In most cases it is quite easy to pick by checking the way which the movement is mounted into the case; and sometimes a ‘marriage’ can be identified by wear marks on the back board of the clock where the pendulum has been rubbing. I have seen a few clocks where the wear marks are a few inches higher or lower than the place where the pendulum swings.

I recently viewed a longcase at a local auction house, and it was obvious to me that the movement and case had been married. The dial had also been married to the movement. There were extra holes in the front plate of the movement where the original dial would have been fitted.

Prices for longcase clocks vary greatly and you do get what you pay for. I have seen 30 hour clocks sell for $1200 and good 8 day longcases sell for $45,000.

I have worked on the earliest known example of a James Oatley clock No. 5 which if went on the market would sell for over $300,000! Generally speaking, clocks from London makers usually command higher prices than country makers.

Other extremely rare longcases are the 30 day and year-going examples which command big prices when they come on the market.

Graham Mulligan

January 2010