Clocks · Clock
Secticon T2 Maritime clock designed by Angelo Mangiarotti, circa 1956
- Maker / attribution
- Angelo Mangiarotti (maker)
- Date
- c. 1956
- Historical period
- Modern Mechanical Horology (1945 – 1969)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Dimensions
- Height 3.75 in (10 cm)
- Auction house
- Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham
- Lot
- Sale 42, lot 1066
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 1066, Fine Clocks & Related Items, Gardiner Houlgate (22nd October 2026)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Secticon T2 Maritime clock designed by Angelo Mangiarotti (Italian, 1921-2012), made by Portescap, The Universal Exhaust Port La Chaux de Fonds S. A, La Chaux de Fonds, circa 1956, circular gilt dial (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham (lot Sale 42, lot 1066), this is a clock by Angelo Mangiarotti, dated c. 1956. The Atlas places it in the Modern Mechanical Horology period (1945 – 1969) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 3.75 in (10 cm). The record is illustrated with 2 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
Lot description — Gardiner Houlgate
Secticon T2 Maritime clock designed by Angelo Mangiarotti (Italian, 1921-2012), made by Portescap, The Universal Exhaust Port La Chaux de Fonds S. A, La Chaux de Fonds, circa 1956, circular gilt dial with black hour markers, black hands and red centre seconds in a black plastic case, 3.75" high ** From the David Read Collection
Historical context
Modern Mechanical Horology (1945 – 1969)
Tool watches for divers, pilots and astronauts; electric watches anticipate the electronic age.
Post-war clocks combined new materials and industrial design: plastic and metal cases, battery-powered transistor movements from the late 1950s, and design classics by George Nelson, Max Bill and others. The first caesium atomic clock (1955) moved the definition of time from astronomy to physics.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking
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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