29.                   $500

Charles Kirk shelf clock, ca. 1840.  When my consignors handed me this clock they made a big fuss about it which I didn’t understand.  I then posted it on the AAC Facebook page along with a bunch of other clocks and my good friend Philip Morris immediately made a big fuss about it, all to my surprise.  This model is pictured in Ly’s American Clocks Vol. 3 on page 103.  There are no sales records on LiveAuctioneers or the Antique Clocks Identification and Price Guide and I could not find it in any of my antique clocks reference (picture) books, but I’m sure you will know where it is shown.  The case is 18.5 inches tall in rosewood veneer with some replacements. The door glass is old with a newly painted tablet on the lower third that matches the tablet shown on an identical case that houses a Joseph Ives movement, now in the American Clock and Watch Museum in Bristol (see page 103 of American Clocks Vol. 3).  The dial is wood with some deterioration across the top and some infilling.  Note the large center opening to view the brass movement. The hands appear to be original.  The 8-day time-and-strike movement is unsigned but distinctively Kirk’s, with a cast iron backplate and the springs housed in iron cups.  It is running confidently.  There is no label and probably never was.  A rare clock from a highly regarded maker.  $500–$1000.