Creator
Synchronome
Title
Astronomical impulse dial
Category
Inscriptions and markings
On dial: 'Synchronome Electric | London'. Sticker on reverse relating to previous owner and handler: 'GANDER & WHITE | SHIPPING LTD | 21 Lillie Road, London SW6 1UE | Telephone 01713810571 | WB: 4241/1 Client: Bobinet | Item no: #1 4/1
Provenance
Sold through Bobinet
Overview
This is an impulse, or subsidiary dial, receiving time signals from a controlling clock. It was manufactured by the Synchronome Company, and features a silvered Arabic dial in an oak casing, and astronomical presentation, with separate dials for hours, minutes and seconds. This indicates it was intended for use in a high-precision environment, such as an observatory or a laboratory, rather than as an everyday timekeeper, and indeed it was advertised in Synchronome’s catalogue of ‘Astronomical Regulators and Observatory Installations’ of the early 1920s, along with the company’s flagship observatory clock, the Shortt Free Pendulum (see TCW 1073).
Dimensions
10-inch dial
Inventory number
TCW 1078
Date
c.1920s
Bibliography
Robert Miles, Synchronome: Masters of Electrical Timekeeping (Ticehurst: Antiquarian Horological Society, 2011)
Synchronome Company, ‘Astronomical Regulators and Observatory Installations, together with a brief essay on the Free Pendulum and the general principles of the Synchronome System on which it is based’, ([1920s])