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Mantle Clock
ca. 1865
Theodore R. Timby; Dr. L.E. Whiting
USA: New York, Saratoga Springs; Massachusetts, Boston
Walnut, brass, paint
overall: 27 1/4 x 14 x 5 5/8 in.; 69.215 x 35.56 x 14.2875 cm
Gift of Mrs. Willis R. Michael
80.61.2

Mantle Clock; black walnut case; ogee-arched pediment with turned central finial; kidney-shaped hours dial above a revolving six-inch spherical globe; below the globe, a moon-shaped dial shows the minutes; central insert reads "Joslin's (six inch) Terrestial Globe/ containing the latest discoveries/ Boston/ Gilman Joslin/ 1860/ Drawn and engraved by W.D. Annin"; four broken pieces probably surrounded clock face at bottom. Label fragment on back.


The Timby Solar Clock is a combined scientific/educational instrument and novelty clock.The clocks were numbered - Whiting manufactured less than 600 clocks. Whiting advertised the clock as "illustrating the diurnal revolution of the earth and serving as a geographical educator for the school room and family, ornamental in the parlor and useful everywhere." The movement (LaPorte Hubbell's marine lever movement) is described as "The best made in America and unsurpassed in Europe; the balance wheel is set in jewels, making it a timekeeper equal to the best lever watch and regulated in the same way." The movements were made at Saratoga. They were then shipped to Boston where Gilman Joslin (1804-c.1886) added the globe that constituted the main feature of the Timby clock. The globes used were of Joslin's patent of 1860, covered with paper gores printed from a drawing/engraving by William B. Annin. Gilman Joslin (1804-c.1886) was trained as a wood turner and looking glass maker. He began working for award-winning Boston globemaker Josiah Loring in 1837 and took over his thriving business two years later. Joslin brought out his first pair of six-inch Terrestrial/Celestial globes under his own name in 1839. The mechanism patented by Theodore R. Timby of Baldswinsville, NY in 1863 and manufactured by Dr. L.E. Whiting of Saratoga Springs, NY