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The Project facilitates research into early North American clocks - specifically those clocks which have a label pasted inside the case. This project connects two sets of data: the Labels database and the Printers database.

The Labels database contains information provided by clock collectors who have conveyed information from clocks' attached labels: clockmakers and addresses, the printer who printed the label, and descriptive information about the clock. Sometimes, it will also include information on labels which have been pasted over: an "underlabel".

The Printers database contains names and addresses of printers and related professions from the 1700s to 1870. Related professions include engravers, lithographers, booksellers, publishers, editors, pressmen, xylographers, sterographers, etc. Most of the information in this database has been extracted from city and regional directories.

One of the primary uses of this site is to assist in dating a clock's manufacture by referencing the printer's name and address from the clock label against the data found in the Printers database.

This project was initiated in the early 1980s and was worked on sporatically through the 1990s and 2000s. The effort in 2020 to expand the Printers database and to create this website to join the two databases makes the information more useful and more accessible. Read more about the history of the project.

Please add labels!! - the more labels in the database, the more useful it is!
Correspondingly, the Printers database will continue to be expanded over time.