What does fusee mean on a dial clock?

It's the drive: a spring barrel and a tapering grooved pulley joined by chain or gut, which evens out the pull of the mainspring as it runs down. The word appears in 514 titles in this category, second only to "wall". Single fusee means one train and no strike; twin or double fusee means the clock strikes as well.

Why are dial sizes always quoted in inches?

Because the dial is the point of the clock, and buyers of round wall dials buy by diameter. Roughly one title in forty states the inch measurement outright. The sampled spread runs from a 7in dwarf dial through the everyday 8in, 10in and 12in, up to 14in, 18in and a single 32in industrial factory dial. Both ends of that spread get flagged in titles as small or large.

Are longcase clocks really dial clocks?

On this heading, yes. Longcase, grandfather and long case together account for about a fifth of listings, entered because the dial itself is what the title describes, brass, arch, painted or moon. Wall clocks and fusee movements still dominate the sold archive, but longcases dominate the live stock.

What are railway and GPO dials?

Wall dials issued to institutions and marked accordingly. GWR, GPO, GvR, LMS, NER, British Railways, RAF sector and Air Ministry marks all turn up, and "railway" appears in 37 titles. One sampled austerity example has a Bakelite case dated 1943. Documented issue marks push a clock up the range.

Do foreign clocks appear in this category?

Occasionally, against a heavily English mass. The samples include a Dutch Frisian Stoelklok Schippertje, a Japanese Tokyo wall clock and an Anglo-Swiss station clock. French mantel and carriage clocks are the larger foreign presence, with "french" in 146 titles. One eighteenth-century Swedish turret clock face and movement from Rosendal Palace appears once and nowhere else.

Which dial clocks sit at the top of the range?

London-signed longcases and bracket clocks, and the two longcases entered as "Before 1700", the earliest dates anywhere in the archive. Wooden-dial wall clocks, where the dial itself is timber rather than iron or brass, come up only a handful of times and all sit high. So do automata: rocking-ship longcases, a rocking Father Time chinoiserie case and a moving windmill fusee dial.

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Antique Dial Clocks

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A dial clock is a round-faced English wall timepiece, usually fusee-driven in a turned mahogany or oak bezel and box, made to be read across a tavern, office, schoolroom or station platform.