MYSTERY CLOCKS
Have you ever seen a Mystery Clock?
These are clocks whose hands move seemingly without any clockworks moving them.

The most famous (and valuable) Mystery Clocks were built by the legendary magician Robert-Houdin in the mi-1800s.
Robert-Houdin was a master clockmaker, and he also was a performing magician.
Yes- THAT Robert-Houdin, the man Houdini took his professional name from!
Anyway, Robert-Houdin combined his passions, and created Mystery Clocks, clocks with clear faces so it was a mystery how the hands were being moved.

Years later, other companies produced their own versions of the Mystery Clock.
In America, the Ansonia Company, famous for its bronze figurine clocks, made a series of "Swingers", small bronze statues holding pendulum clocks.
Though the pendulums were held by the tiniest finger of the statue, the clocks worked and the pendulums swung for days, without any apparent energy source.
In 1940, a Dutch inventor named Prins made the first electric Mystery Clock.
An American clock company, Jefferson, purchase the patent and for several decades produced millions of these Golden Hour Mystery Clocks.

How do they work?
Let me show you two Mystery Clocks from my collection...

2 Comments

Kazar

Date 10/21/2020

Dan Lopez

Date 11/7/2020

Add Comment

TOP