A clockwork clock

I'm sure that most of my kids will recognize this little gem of a clock. For many years we had one very similar to it in our family room. The little silver balls would be lifted one at a time to the top channel where they would begin their descent powered only by gravity.

When the topmost channel received it's fifth ball, it would dump all five, four of the balls returning to the main channel to be recycled and the fifth moving to the next ramp down. The balls in that ramp represented 5 minute increments so 11 balls represented 55 minutes. When the 12th ball came to that channel, it would dump all twelve, eleven of which returned to the main channel while the 12th drops down to the hour channel. This one had one silver ball that never moved since in our time system we don't use 0 o'clock. Therefore with 11 moving balls, the clock indicated 12 o'clock. When the 12th ball came down from the channel above, again all 12 moving balls would be dumped, this time all of them going to the main channel to be recycled.

I loved to watch and marvel at this clock and the very mechanical way it had of marking time. But it was noisy, the balls got lost easily, and the motor eventually didn't run so well. I don't know exactly what happened to it but I haven't seen it in years.

But, thanks to eBay (and a very indulgent wife), we now have a new one just like the picture. I think they've actually improved on the model we had. The lifting mechanism isn't running constantly. In it's place is a dial with the seconds marked on it. Once a minute the lift arm is actuated and it does it's thing in about 7 seconds. And I find I'm just as fascinated as ever watching time being measured, one little silver ball at a time.