166.               $250

Drop octagon with Josiah K. Seem calendar dial, ca. 1869.  Josiah K Seem was a teacher and jeweler who had a fascination for making calendar mechanisms.  This calendar works on a simple mechanism in which a pin on the back of the hour hand advances a star gear on the back of the dial once every 12 hours, which moves the day wheel forward.  Two revolutions of the hour hand (24 hours) moves the day wheel forward one day and also advances the date wheel one day.  There is also a month wheel at the bottom of the dial that shows the number of days in the month; this wheel does not advance with the time and must be rotated by hand to show the current month.   This is not a perpetual calendar and has to be adjusted each month, but it is ingeniously simple and the calendar dial can be added to any clock.  Here the clock is a drop octagon probably made by Ansonia, although the movement is not marked and the maker’s label is obscured by overpasted labels for Seem’s calendar dial.  The 24-inch rosewood case has a very old finish with some roughness; the dial glass is modern, the pendulum door glass likely original.  The metal dial has the original paint with scattered chipping and light soiling, with the Seems calendar disks in red lettering (except the month at the bottom of the dial).  The hands are likely original with a repaired pin on the hour hand.  The 8-day, time-and-strike movement is running and striking on a wire gong.  You can find a few Seem calendar dial clocks on LiveAuctioneers but not this one; they are not common and were probably only made for a few years, in low quantity.  AAC sold a Seem calendar dial clock last year for $313.  $250–$350.