Rolling Eye Clocks -- crazy German 1920s novelty timepieces

The Watchismo Times has a great feature on the J Oswald Company's "Rolling Eye Clocks," novelty timepieces in which the eyes of a sculptural head rotated around to display the time.

Rolling eye clocks - first patented in 1926 by the J. Oswald Company of Germany with early models carved of wood and cast from metal after World War II.

The dials are represented as the eyes separating the hours on the left and minutes to the right. This collection of cross-eyed genies, skulls, monkeys, gnomes, owls, and dogs (LOTS of dogs) are an interesting cast of antique novelty clocks.

History of spy-cam watches
Solid wood pocket-watch from 1900
Pictorial history of kids' watches
History of armored military watches
History of slide-rule wristwatches
Early days of plastic watches Mechanical "LED watch" from 1970
History of calculator watches
Steampunk watch
Belt-drive watch
Watch guts of great beauty
All-plastic watch movement from the 70s
Awesome, impractical, expensive watch

[#1 posted by Anonymous , September 13, 2007 6:57 AM]

It's kind of spooky how much this looks like President Bush.

[#2 posted by joejoejoe , September 13, 2007 7:32 AM]

My family has one of these clocks.

My grandfather bought one as a gift in the early 1940s while working in Bermuda as a aircraft mechanic for Pan Am. The model we have is a variation of the Genie, call it the Swami. I used to get yelled at as a kid for playing with the clock and winding it - not because it was valuable but the 'tick,tick,tick' is very loud.

The Swami model is stained wood, not painted, and has a turban similar to the Genie but with a different carved face and outfit. The outstretched palms hold a matching wooden coaster that my Mom thinks is original.

[#3 posted by Charlie , September 13, 2007 10:34 AM]

I actually posted short article about these a few weeks ago:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/08/16/monkey-tells-time-by-rolling-eyes/