OG (Ogee) Shelf Clocks

Movement & mechanism

• Weight-driven movement in earlier and mid-nineteenth-century examples, spring-driven going-barrel movements becoming common later in the century
• Wooden-plate movements in the earliest, cheapest production, superseded by brass movements from the 1840s as brass-rolling costs fell
• Thirty-hour or eight-day duration, wound through holes in the painted glass tablet or dial
• Simple time-and-strike trains, striking on a bell, aimed at an inexpensive mass domestic market

Identification

• Distinctive ogee (S-curve) moulded case frame around the door is the defining identification feature, giving the type its name
• A reverse-painted glass tablet (often with a landscape or geometric design) beneath the dial is typical
• Paper label pasted inside the case back, where surviving, identifies the factory, patent information and sometimes a date, and is a significant survival for both attribution and value

Terminology

• Ogee moulding — the S-shaped (concave-then-convex) moulding profile that gives the type its name
• Tablet — the (often reverse-painted) glass panel below the dial in Connecticut shelf clock cases

Known variations

• Wooden-movement OG clocks (earliest, generally 1830s)
• Thirty-hour brass-movement OG clocks
• Eight-day brass-movement OG clocks

Collecting notes

OG clocks were produced in very large numbers and survive in substantial quantity, so collector interest centres heavily on condition of the original label, tablet and finish rather than rarity of the basic form; a clean, legible factory label materially assists both dating and attribution.

Sources & references

1. Palmer, B., A Treasury of American Clocks
2. Britten, F. J., Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers

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