The Time Museum - Actual Informations
© The Time Museum

The City of Chicago has acquired most of The Time Museum. The new National Time Museum of Chicago will be exhibited at the Museum of Science and Industry beginning in January, 2001. Some of the instruments will go to the Adler Planetarium.

Among the approximately 1500 clocks, watches and instruments which will be kept by the City of Chicago is the Orrery Clock by Raingo à Paris, c. 1820-1824, shown at the collection site. The clock shows the motion of earth and moon. This is one of only 8 known orreries by Raingo.

Of the others, one was acquired originally by King George IV and is located in the royal library at Windsor Castle. Others can be found in the Glasgow Art Gallery; Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris; Palais de Cinquentenaire, Brussels; and the Royal Collection in Madrid #92.

Auction

In what has been described as the "sale of the century," eighty-one lots were auctioned at Sotheby's on December 2, 1999. For further information call (212) 606-7184. Some of the clock and watch-makers represented in the sale were Tompion, Knibb, Margetts, Breguet, Janvier, and Patek Philippe. Instrument makers include Schissler, Arsenius, Hartman and Glynne. The 315-page hard-cover catalog includes a number of original essays as well as detailed descriptions accompanied by lavish photographs. These catalogs are still available from Sotheby's.

History

Formerly located within the Best Western Clock Tower Resort & Conference Center in Rockford, Illinois USA., The Time Museum, an international collection of time-measuring devices, was open to the public for almost 30 years. It was closed in March, 1999. 

The idea behind The Time Museum was to illustrate the most significant technical developments in the history of time measurement. Included in the 1,500-object collection were sundials, nocturnals, water clocks, sand-glasses, chronometers, and astronomical regulators as well as domestic clocks and watches. Most time-measuring devices in the collection dated from the 17th- through 19th- centuries and were European or British in origin. The American section focused upon clocks from Colonial times through about 1870 and watches from the 1850's through about 1920.  

The story of The Time Museum