Hi all,

Earlier this summer, I bought a beautiful full-size (about 29 x 16 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch) Jerome OG clock from an antique dealer near Springfield, Ohio. I've done some research, and it appears that this is a Waterbury-era clock. I also believe it to be pre-1874, because the label printer is listed as Goddard at the Union Street address, and I believe he died in 1874.

It has a beautifully-crazed dial and an etched bottom glass. The examples I've seen of the Waterbury-era Jerome clocks tend to have colored and painted bottom glass, but I've seen a few examples where the owners have claimed that similar etched bottom glass is original to the clock.

Any ideas what year my clock may date to, and whether the dial and bottom glass are original?

Photos below.

Thanks!

Mike

Label:

Mike,
I'm just taking a wild guess, but the etched glass appears to me to be a replacement of whatever came with it originally.

Thanks Dave. I certainly would not be able to tell the difference. But I just love the wood grain on the case! Plus, this movement runs is super accurate.

When I first bought this, I was lazy and attached a very week wall hanger to the case back. When I went to wind it for the first time, it fell straight down onto my watch bench over which I had hung it! It didn't shift right or left when it fell, nor did it fall forward. It landed flat onto the bench! In the process, the wire to which the pendulum attaches broke clean away from the movement. Amazingly, in light of the heavy weights, there was virtually no damage to the case, except for a few seam splits that were easily repaired. No damage at all to the crystal or the bottom glass! My local clock maker was able to repair the pendulum issues and add a much stronger wall hanger to the back of the case. I am extremely fortunate that the clock was so easily and inexpensively repaired after this god-awful mishap. I now figure that this clock was meant to hang over my bench.

Thanks for taking an interest in my clock!

OG, OOG, what do they mean?

Interesting, same thing happened to my Seth #2. Made a terrible noise when it fell, but didn't do a lot of damage. My solution was a proper wall anchor.

As for OG, (Ogee), I think that refers to the soft S curve on the clock surround, which is characteristic of many clocks of this era.

quote:

As for OG, (Ogee), I think that refers to the soft S curve on the clock surround, which is characteristic of many clocks of this era.

I should have seen that as I have router bits with that same shape, OOG, a double S?

That's also my understanding of what OG and OOG mean. As I understand it, there were various sizes. When I found the full-size OG that is the subject of this post, I already owned two of the smaller varieties: a mid-1870s Seth Thomas, and a pre-1870 Waterbury. For whatever reason, these seem to be relatively common. But the clock in this post is the first full-sized one I had ever seen in person.

I found a Collectors Weekly piece that talked about the difference between OG and OOG clocks. The info was provided by a fellow named Dave Weisbart, who is the owner of Prestige Clock Repair in Huntington Beach, CA and who shares his clock collection on his site, Dave’s American Clocks.

According to Mr. Weisbart, an OG clock is basically a big rectangle, and the frame on the front has sort of an S curve molding all the way around like a picture frame. The term for that S curve molding in the lumber industry is ogee, so these became the OG clocks. The original OGs were weight-driven, so they needed to be fairly large so the weights would have room to fall as they powered the clock. As springs became more reliable, some of the makers started making a small OOG which was spring-driven, and they didn’t have to be as large as the big one. The OOG refers to an additional curved molding on the outside of the frame. There’s a thin strip of molding all the way around, and then you see the thicker strip, which is the S curve. Then you see the door of the clock. If thin strip on the outside is curved, then that’s an OOG. That’s not really a standard designation, but some people used it.

You can see the article here: http://www.collectorsweekly.co...ector-dave-weisbart/

Correction to my original post. I said I thought the clock is from the "Waterbury era." Actually, Chauncey Jerome's operation was taken over by New Haven, not Waterbury, when he went bankrupt in 1855. So, this would be more properly characterized as a "New Haven era" clock.