Imperial/Ingraham Clock - Information Requested

[blueingy]

Hi all,

I visited my grandmother this weekend and she gave me a clock of hers that I'd been admiring for some time. It belonged to my paternal great-grandfather who lived from 1874-1940 in upstate New York.

The clock has an Imperial label on the back with E. Ingraham & Co and the patent information (9-1-1885, 12-22-1885, 4-14-1888).

I'd love to know more about this piece, so any assistance you can provide would be much appreciated.

 

[JTD]

Welcome to the board.

Imperial is the name of the model. Don't know the exact date but there are folks on here who do.

JTD

 

[Steven Thornberry]

Interesting. The old label on the clock proclaims it as the Imperial, but the Imperial shown in Tran Duy Ly's book on Ingraham clocks (arlingtonbooks.com) looks nothing like this one. Wonders never cease! Your general case style is more like that of the clock called the Triton, shown from the 1897 catalogue.

Tran's book states that the Imperial as shown there was offered in 1899 and 1900. There may be a date code on the front of the movement, the month appearing to the left of the handshaft, the year to the right. Thus, "06 01" would indicate June 1901. This gives the date the movement was made and provides an appx. date for the clock itself. Ingraham routinely began this style of date coding in April 1897, though I have seen some March 1897 (03 97) dates.

The patent dates:

9/1/1885: this is the date a patent was granted for the japanning method Ingraham used to produce black mantels (granted to Edward Ingraham and assigned to the E. Ingraham Co.). Your clock is commonly designated as a black mantel clock.

12/22/1885: this is the date a patent was granted for the thumb wheel regulator shown on the dial just above the hand shaft (granted to G.L. Goodrich and assigned to the E. Ingraham Co.).

8/14/1888 (not 4/44/1888): this is the date a patent was granted for producing marbleized wood (granted to William Ingraham and assigned to the E. Ingraham Co.). It would apply to the marbleing of the architraves and bases between which the columns are placed. Possibly the columns themselves were marbleized, but they don't appear so from your pictures.

 

[Steven Thornberry]

Here are catalogue pictures from Tran's book for comparison. BTW, if the movement plates are steel, as stated on the wooden placard, that would comport with the 1899/1900 dates for the Imperial as stated in Tran. I have seen such Ingraham movements from this period, a by-product of conserving brass for Spanish American War purposes.