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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Clock type · Specialist

Mystery Clocks

Partially verified

Clocks designed so the drive to the hands (or a pendulum) is deliberately concealed, creating the visual illusion that a hand or pendulum moves without any connecting mechanism.

Movement & mechanism

  • Hands mounted on a transparent glass disc, geared invisibly at its edge rather than at a visible centre arbor
  • Alternatively, a pendulum apparently suspended from a swinging figure, driven by an unseen linkage or by rocking the whole case slightly
  • Movement typically hidden in the base or figure, physically remote from the apparent point of motion

Identification

  • A glass dial disc with no visible central arbor connecting the hands to a movement is the classic giveaway
  • Figural mystery clocks (a swinging pendulum apparently suspended from a statuette's hand) rely on a disguised linkage through the figure

Terminology

  • Mystery dial — a glass disc geared at its rim rather than its centre

Known variations

  • Glass-disc mystery clock
  • Figural pendulum mystery clock

Collecting notes

High-end mystery clocks, especially those by well-documented workshops, are a prestige collecting category; authentication depends heavily on maker's marks since the visual concept has been widely imitated at all quality levels.

Photographs

Farcot and Carrier-Belleuse Conical Mystery Clock
Farcot and Carrier-Belleuse Conical Mystery Clock — Rauantiques, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Mystery clock - Cartier (39600552471)
Mystery clock - Cartier (39600552471) — Tim Evanson from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. Wikimedia Commons file page

Photographs are illustrative examples of the type, not necessarily the exact object described. Verify details against the source file page.

Sources & references

  1. General decorative clock literature; the extent of Robert-Houdin's originating role versus later commercialisation (e.g. by Cartier) is treated cautiously here.

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