Just acquired a rosewood (or at least, rosewood colour) banjo timepiece with 7" cream painted dial, black roman chapters, moon hands, in a case resembling an E Howard No. 5, except that it has a fine panel in the base of American and British sailing ships fighting (suggesting 1812, but the clock is quite a bit later than that) and a colourful tapered glass with flowers in the waist area. The movement sort of resembles a Howard one but there are several differences. The click on the great wheel is straight, whereas Howard ones are generally curved. All the illustrations of Howard movements I have found show the top pillar pins on the front plate vertical, whereas these are horizontal. There is no maker's stamp or mark on the movement, but there is a carefully scratched signature "Primrose Bensom Fecit", or possibly Hensom, or maybe even Benson, but the last letter is clearly an m.
Howard movements generally have cast iron weights and wood rod pendulums. Ours has a wire pendulum and a lead weight.
The movement is almost identical to movements by Martin Cheney of Montreal (type 2), but many of them tend to look like that.
I have read that some of the makers employed apprentices to finish movements, spoke out wheels etc. I am wondering if Ms (presumably) Bensom might have been one of those? If so, to whom was she apprenticed?
Does anyone have any comments?
Howard movements generally have cast iron weights and wood rod pendulums. Ours has a wire pendulum and a lead weight.
The movement is almost identical to movements by Martin Cheney of Montreal (type 2), but many of them tend to look like that.
I have read that some of the makers employed apprentices to finish movements, spoke out wheels etc. I am wondering if Ms (presumably) Bensom might have been one of those? If so, to whom was she apprenticed?
Does anyone have any comments?