Skip to content
The Encyclopedia of Horology

Clock type · Precision

Great Wheel Skeleton Clocks

Partially verified

Skeleton clocks featuring an exceptionally large main wheel, often intended to run for a month or longer.

Movement & mechanism

  • Huge main wheel (the 'great wheel') that dominates the movement architecture
  • High-grade train with many leaves on the pinions to achieve long duration
  • Often features a deadbeat escapement

Identification

  • Main wheel nearly as large as the dial
  • Very tall, slender frame
  • Visible long duration train

Terminology

  • Great wheel
  • Month-going
  • Skeletonized

Known variations

  • Timepiece and striking versions

Collecting notes

Condition and originality are paramount. For technical clocks like regulators or atmospheric clocks, the completeness of the original mechanism is more important than case condition. For decorative clocks (Boulle, Empire), the quality of the case craft is central.

Related photographs

Great Wheel Skeleton Clock
Great Wheel Skeleton Clock — Rauantiques, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Clock, skeleton (AM 2583-1)
Clock, skeleton (AM 2583-1) — Unknown authorUnknown author, CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page

No confidently matched photograph of this subject has been found yet. These photographs show a closely related record, and are not examples of the type described on this page.

Sources & references

  1. Britten, F. J., Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers
  2. Loomes, B., The Early Clockmakers of Great Britain
  3. Roberts, D., British Skeleton Clocks
  4. Museum catalogue records

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.