Chelsea Clock Company Tambour No. 3 Clock, ca. 1915

Appraised on: July 9, 2011

Appraised in: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Appraised by: Sean Delaney

Category: Clocks & Watches

Episode Info: Minneapolis, Hour 1 (#1616)

Originally Aired: May 7, 2012

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (2:18)

GUEST: This is a clock that I picked up at a garage sale probably 20 years ago. I'm not a clock collector, so I guess I don't really know what I've got or what I'm doing. But in fact, I was probably playing hooky from work that day and was supposed to be running errands for the job, and I saw this garage sale, and I'm always looking for tools or some sort of thing, and there it was.

APPRAISER: And what did you pay for the clock?

GUEST: I paid $20. Well, it looked kind of cool, and then I went to pick it up and it... well, like, I called it a boat anchor earlier. It's awful heavy.


APPRAISER: That's funny you call it a boat anchor because in the trade, sometimes we call these types of clocks boat anchors because of the weight of them, they're so heavy. The average one I see quite a bit here at the Roadshow, and they're wood cases, most of them are made in Connecticut, and they're worth about $20. They made so many of them. But this clock is called a Tambour No. 3, and it was made by the Chelsea Clock Company in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Chelsea clocks are synonymous with quality. They have a wonderful reputation. They're a company that started in 1897, and they're still in business today. This is a tambour style, and it refers to the shape of it right here, and this is a very distinctive case where it has these four balled feet and these wonderful rolled ends. It has a six-inch dial, which is very nice, and it has these raised numerals, which they call a special dial. It's a time-and-strike mechanism, meaning it strikes the hour on the hour. It has a "J.B. Hudson Co. in Minneapolis." It's made of brass.

GUEST: That was my guess.

APPRAISER: And it is very heavy. It'd probably weigh about 45 pounds or so. And it has this what they call a patented bronze finish on it. This was made circa 1915, and in 1917 it retailed for $116. This clock in today's market, in a retail setting, would probably sell for about $1,500.

GUEST: Oh, really? That beats 20 bucks, I guess.

APPRAISER: Yeah, it's a pretty good return on a $20 investment.