I picked this up a while ago, browsing a white elephant sale. A small Smiths “Sectric” mantel clock in dark brown Bakelite. Originally it would have been powered from the mains (5A, I suspect, in the days when houses generally had 5A and 15A before the 13A square pin became standardised).

The original electric movement had been taken out and replaced by a cheap, basic quartz movement. Once I got about half a century’s worth of grime off it, it looks quite nice. I’m pretty sure the dial would be original, and it’s in very good condition.

Dial measures 10cm, and the whole thing stands 14cm tall. It can’t date before 1937, when the Sectric name was first used, and I suspect it is post war, with my best guess being 1950s.

Nice little curio.

Those numerals are adorable!

Greatpotfarm wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2023 10:02 pm One of my favorite things about electric (plug-in) clocks is the continuous, smooth sweep of the seconds hand....

As you can see, Dan, no seconds hand on this one, which is probably a good thing because otherwise it would have the quartz one-second clunk.

Greatpotfarm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 13, 2023 3:52 pm Seconds hand or not, most quartz clock modules still run one second at a time (there would still be an audible clunk, just not a visual one).

You are right, Dan. There is a quietly audible clunk that is much more noticeable when you take the back off. Doing a quick Google for UTS movements, they do seem to be quite cheap but hey, it works.

I gave 15 of our finest British pounds for it, cleaned it up a bit, put a battery in and away it went. No complaints.

^^^ Immer Besser!

Talk about a misread thread title