I was walking through a local antique shop and noticed this clock out of the corner of my eye. Seemed weird to have a visible escapement with no winding holes up front. When I told the guy I wanted to buy it he said, "hold on while I unplug it". I was kind of leary to buy an electric clock but had never seen one before.. Neat thing was once he unplugged it, it kept running all the way home. I haven't done any research on it. Wondering if someone could fill me in..

It is a Sangamo Electric with an 11j Illinois movement. Chimes on the half hour and hour.
It is a model 539 type 8 Style 5006. Any info or insight would be appreciated

sort of close up of the dial and escapement. sorry about the quality.

Bruce,
The Sangamo Company was a very diverse company. Besides electric clocks, they made taxi meters, electric meters for utilities, bomb timers, and other measuring devices. If I remember correctly, the Sangamo Company was purchased by the Hamilton Watch Company and Hamilton incorporated some watch technology into their clocks. When the clock you have was new, electricity was not as dependable as today. An occasional electric outage was to be expected. That style Sangamo clock had the ability to bridge over most electric outages.
Your clock is a real prize and these are sought after.
Best Regards,
Dick Feldman

Nice find Bruce, could you show us the movement also.I don,t see many electric clocks here of good quality.I really like the case on yours also.

Bruce,
There is a very interesting article in the DEc. 1996 Bulleltin, Whole No. 305 page 781.

It discusses several clocks, but has pictures, and discusses one with a movement like yours.

Thanks for the info. Here is a picture of the movement. The small dial above the electrical is a seconds hand.

Another view.

That clock has an Illinois movement, with a 30 hour mainspring. Once wound up, the movement ran the clock. If the power went out, the clock would run off the mainspring for 30 hours. When power came back on, the electricity would rewind the movement and off she'd go. They used wonderful wood in those cases. There was abook published in 1978 as a souvenir of the Chicago National, called Illinois Horology. That book has a nice section on Sangamo Clocks.

Steve,
Thanks for the lead. I didn't think to look in that one. The Bulletin article was too much to scan, but here are three pages from Illinois Horology

The first one shows some Sangamo models.

The next two pictures show the movement.

Picture 3

The link below is for an auction on a clock with a similar movement that ended recently.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6551...TRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

Tom, Thanks for the schematic. Funny thing is if you look at the movement from the back it kind of looks like an electric meter.. Spare Parts made into a clock

Thanks for the info.

I have a model #5101 that I had running for a while.It stopped so I have to operate on it again.
Anyone have a value for these?
J Smith