Clocks · Clock
Alarm clock by Shanghai Stopwatch Factory, China, 1970-1975
- Maker / attribution
- Shanghai Stopwatch Factory (maker)
- Date
- 1970-1975
- Historical period
- Quartz Revolution (1969 – 1990)
- Country of origin
- China
- Place
- Shanghai, Shanghai Shi, China, China, Shanghai
- Object type
- Clock
- Dimensions
- overall: 97 mm x 140 mm x 85 mm,
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- 2021-625
- Catalogue title (original)
- Alarm clock with mechanical movement
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 2021-625), this is a clock by Shanghai Stopwatch Factory, made in Shanghai, Shanghai Shi, China, China, Shanghai, dated 1970-1975. The Atlas places it in the Quartz Revolution period (1969 – 1990) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: overall: 97 mm x 140 mm x 85 mm. The record is illustrated with 4 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Science Museum Group description
This clock was made by the Shanghai Stopwatch Factory in China under the Diamond (Zuanshi) brand name and exported to Britain. This company was the successor to the original Tak On Clock Factory that was formed in Shanghai in 1932, destroyed by bombing in 1937 and then rebuilt in 1938 and renamed Diamond Shanghai. One of its main outputs at this time was alarm clocks. In 1955 the company was amalgamated with other factories and became known as the Shanghai Clock and Watch Industry Company, which began to specialise in stopwatches from 1959. As a result it took on the Shanghai Stopwatch Factory name in 1966, but continued to make alarm clocks such as this one for export under the Diamond (Zuanshi) brand name.
Historical context
Quartz Revolution (1969 – 1990)
Seiko's Astron begins mass quartz timekeeping; traditional industries contract sharply.
Quartz movements and digital displays made accurate clocks cheap and ubiquitous after the early 1970s. LED and LCD clocks, clock radios and radio-controlled clocks appeared, while traditional mechanical clockmaking contracted sharply in Germany, France and Britain.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Modern Mechanical Horology
Atlas type guide
Timers, stopwatches, chronoscopes and time recorders
Instruments for measuring short intervals or recording when something happened form a large and practical branch of horology. Sports stopwatches and split-seconds timers, laboratory chronoscopes (such as Hipp's, which measured thousandths of a second for psychology and ballistics experiments), metronomes for music, watchmen's clocks that recorded patrol rounds, and the time recorders that clocked factory workers in and out all derive from clock and watch technology.
These objects matter historically because they show timekeeping leaving the observatory and the drawing room and entering industry, science and sport. Many were mass-produced, and their dials, scales and patents chart the rise of electrification and industrial management.
What to look for
- Scales graduated in fifths, tenths or hundredths of a second, or decimal minutes for industrial use.
- Start, stop and reset push-pieces; a second hand that can be stopped independently (split seconds).
- Recording devices: paper discs or tapes, printing mechanisms, keys or punches.
- Patent numbers and dates on the dial or case, which give a terminus post quem.
Dating clues
- Hipp chronoscopes were made from the 1840s into the twentieth century.
- Employee time recorders spread from the 1890s (Bundy, IBM, International Time Recording Co.).
- Quartz and electronic timers replaced mechanical stopwatches in sport from the 1970s.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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