Eli Terry & Sons box clock with torsion-spring alarm, ca. 1826.  This is a doubly-rare clock – it is a box clock from the Eli Terry shop, and it incorporates a torsion-spring alarm, also invented in the Terry shop.  This alarm (called a crown wheel escapement alarm by Roberts & Taylor, and more commonly a “window shade alarm”), was mounted in the bottom of the case and is also found in contemporaneous pillar & scroll clocks from Terry & Sons.  It was only used for a short while and soon replaced by weight-driven alarms. Ward Francillon described this alarm mechanism in 1971 (Francillon, NAWCC Bulletin 154, pages 1424-1427) and notes that it preceded the later widespread use of spring-driven alarms by 20 years.  Similarly, box clocks, which followed from Eli Terry’s original wooden shelf clocks, appear to have been produced in limited quantities, being disfavored for the more fashionable pillar & scrolls.  

The mahogany-veneered case is 23 inches tall and 14 inches wide; there are no veneer breaks or repairs evident.  The dial glass is either a replacement with old glass, or new putty; it is bowed on the right, but I don’t think intentionally.  The lower mirror looks like a mid-twentieth century replacement; both glasses have corner cracks.  The wooden dial is remarkably clean and well-preserved; it is certainly Eli Terry-style, with the vase and flowers below the center post.  It has a stamp on the back from a dealer from 1945.  The hands are proper and period. 

The five-wheel wooden 30-hour movement is clean and little-used; it will strike and runs briefly.  Note the connections for the remote alarm, and the silvered brass alarm ring.  The alarm in the bottom of the case was not tested, but it winds by simply turning the wooden gear on the right with your finger three revolutions; the brass crown wheel on the left causes the alarm hammer to swing back and forth and strike the iron bell when it unwinds.  The hammer is blocked from swinging (and the alarm from unwinding) by a paddle arm that comes down from the movement; the upper end of the paddle arm is held vertical by the alarm ring until the ring has turned such that the upper end of the paddle arm falls forward into a cut in the alarm ring (see the photo), moving the lower end of the arm (the paddle) backwards out of the way of the alarm hammer, thereby releasing the hammer and allowing the alarm to unwind.  Quite ingenious! 

There are two 3-lb lead weights; a pendulum bob is not included.  The label inside on the back wall appears to be a reproduction, but several other examples of this rare model also have well-preserved labels.  This clock sold at Skinner’s in 2011 for $10,413.  You can see a similar example on page 112 of Roberts & Taylor, Eli Terry and the Connecticut Shelf Clock.  I can find one additional sale – for $2300 in 2002 at R.O. Schmitt, and that clock did not contain a correct movement or dial.  A box clock without an alarm sold for $6500 at Skinner’s in 2009, the only Terry & Sons box clock sale that I can find.  $5000–$7500.