Help identifying large Hamilton Mantel Clock

Evitzee

That's not a mantle clock, that's a wall clock. It most likely has an 8 day West German rod chime movement in it, but an American case. Probably has Westminster chimes on the quarter hour, and hour strike. If you remove the pendulum and undo the screws on the back of the case you can easily remove the movement check the source of the movement, and possibly the maker of the movement. Looks in pretty good condition.

Evitzee

That's not a mantle clock, that's a wall clock. It most likely has an 8 day West German rod chime movement in it, but an American case. Probably has Westminster chimes on the quarter hour, and hour strike. If you remove the pendulum and undo the screws on the back of the case you can easily remove the movement which will tell you the source of the movement, and possibly the maker. Looks in pretty good condition.

Canuck

If your Hermle clock movement had been fitted with jewels by the manufacturer, the mechanism alone would be far and away more expensive than your entire clock. The price would be so high that there would be no market for it. Small clocks such as carriage clocks might be fitted with up to approximately 7 jewels in the escapement platform.

A friend of mine recently finished building a year-going clock (wound once per year), and friction was a major concern. He was considering fitting his clock with jewels, but settled on ball bearings, instead.

Putting jewelled bearings in clocks might be considered, to possibly add life expectancy to the mechanism. But I very much doubt jewels would make a clock last longer, so why bother?

Canuck

I have found that older clocks like your 18th-century bracket clock are made of vastly superior materials than modern clocks. Brass plates that are as hard as bronze, and arbors on the wheels with pivots so hard that pivot files and burnishing tools won’t touch them. Modern clock movements such as the one in the subject clock have a life expectancy of probably 25 years before they are worn out. It is often necessary to trim and burnish the pivots on the second wheel and third wheel pivots on all three trains, then fit bronze bushings rather than brass. Then to replace any other worn bearings with bronze bushings, and then to clean and lubeen them. Either that, or just replace the movement.

Canuck

It depends on how much it has run. 25 to 30 years of use with no maintenance could mean it is about used up. It is difficult to judge the condition of your clock movement since you chose to show only the stamping on the back plate. You don’t show enough of the over all movement to be able to judge. If it has spent 30 years, dormant, it might just need to be oiled.