Art Deco Clocks between £0 and £0
Art Deco clocks are the domestic timepieces of the 1920s to 1940s - mantel, alarm, desk and wall clocks in chrome, Bakelite, glass, marble and figured wood - made to sit on a mantelpiece, bedside table or desk.
What They Are
The style took shape around the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes and stayed current through the following decade. Clock cases picked up the new industrial materials of the day - chromed metal, moulded phenolic plastic, coloured and mirrored glass - alongside older marble, onyx and veneered wood.
The version you'll meet again and again is the small shelf clock of the 1930s, French or English, cased in chrome, Bakelite or glass. Of the pieces on Sellingantiques with a clean date, 634 of 791 fall in the 1930s, so the category is effectively one decade with a long tail either side. Titles tend to be short and material-led: a country, a material, a form and a date around 1930.
France supplies the largest identifiable origin at 165 titles, England 47, with single listings pointing to Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United States and the Isle of Man. French listings lean towards Bakelite cases and alarm clocks; English ones towards walnut and oak mantel and wall clocks, often with a Westminster chime.
Two side branches sit alongside the clocks. One is glass and mirrored cases - blue, green, peach, pink and turquoise tinted glass, skyscraper profiles and modernist geometry. The other is watches: wristwatches, pocket watches and ladies' cocktail watches in platinum, gold and diamonds, which account for around an eighth of listings and reach the top of the range.
What Sets Them Apart
Material does most of the work. Marble, onyx, bronze and coloured or opalescent glass sit at the upper end, and platinum-and-diamond watches sit above everything else. Plain Bakelite and pressed chrome alarm cases occupy the bottom, which is also where small silver dress watches land.
Sculptural content lifts a piece sharply. Panthers, greyhounds, dancers and figural groups appear almost entirely in the upper half of the range, and a clock sold with matching side pieces - a garniture, a three-piece set, a clock and lamp set - reads well above a clock on its own.
Movement matters less than case but still counts. Eight-day spring movements, Westminster chiming, mystery movements and mains-electric clocks read higher than 30-hour alarms. Scale follows the same pattern: large cases recur at the top, while miniature and travel pieces sit lower, though a miniature in good metal can go the other way.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for art deco clocks between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
France is the origin named most in Art Deco clock titles on Sellingantiques, with England second and single listings from Sweden, Hungary and the Netherlands.
Smiths·Japy·Vitascope·Uriano
The Art Deco Clocks between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Mantel / mantle clock
- A shelf clock. Both spellings run side by side on Sellingantiques, 81 titles for one and 127 for the other, so a search on a single spelling misses a good share of them.
- 8 day
- A spring-driven movement that runs about a week between windings. The word "day" turns up in 78 titles and marks the mechanical movement most often named here.
- Bakelite
- Moulded phenolic plastic, used for cases in 80 titles and commonly paired with chrome trim.
- Modernist
- Dealer shorthand for a severe geometric case with little ornament, used in 61 titles. "Skyscraper", in 13, describes the stepped tower-like profile.
- Westminster chime
- A quarter-chiming strike, named in 17 titles and usually found on wooden-cased English mantel and wall clocks.
- Cocktail watch
- A small dress wristwatch for evening wear, usually ladies', in 34 titles. Garniture covers a clock sold as a set with matching vases, obelisks or lamps.
Frequently Asked Questions
What decade do most of these date from?
The 1930s, by a wide margin. Of the dated pieces on Sellingantiques, 634 of 791 fall in that decade, against 89 in the 1920s, 36 in the 1940s and 15 in the 1950s.
The dated field stretches from 1850 to 1950, but the outliers are few and read as loose dealer dating rather than an earlier population. A handful of entries carry a style label such as "Art Deco" in place of a year.
Why do listings say mantle and mantel?
Both spellings are in use for the same thing, a shelf clock. "Mantle" appears in 127 titles and "mantel" in 81.
Searching one spelling alone leaves out roughly two-fifths of the shelf clocks in the category.
Which countries made them?
France leads at 165 titles, with England second at 47. French listings cluster around Bakelite cases and alarm clocks; English ones around walnut and oak mantel and wall clocks.
Single listings point to Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States. The rarest origin recorded is the Isle of Man, source of the automaton rocking-ship clocks that turn up only a handful of times.
Are watches included in this category?
Yes. Wristwatches, pocket watches and ladies' cocktail watches account for around an eighth of listings, with "watch" in 102 titles and "cocktail watch" in 34.
Platinum, gold and diamond examples sit at the top of the price range, above the clocks.
How many come up for sale each year?
Around 59 Art Deco clocks and clock-form watches come to market on Sellingantiques in a year.
Eighty-two different dealers have listed them, which makes it one of the more widely stocked clock groupings on the site.
Do longcase Art Deco clocks exist?
They do, but barely. Grandmother, granddaughter, grandfather and longcase clocks together account for only about a dozen listings across the whole archive.
One of them is a longcase with a chrome dial and triple weight movement. Other one-off forms include an electric skeleton clock, a strut clock paired with a barometer and an opalescent glass clock with love birds.