Seth Thomas Metronome

Seth Thomas was an industrious clockmaker and pioneer of mass production in the United States. He founded the highly successful Seth Thomas Clock Company, which operated for more than 200 years. Over these two centuries, the company created mantle clocks, wall clocks and table clocks that were known for their masterful craftsmanship and on-trend designs.

Thomas was born in 1785 in Wolcott, Connecticut, to Scottish immigrants. At the time, Connecticut was a growing hub of American clockmaking. Though he left school at an early age, Thomas apprenticed as a carpenter and joiner in Plymouth. In the early 1800s, he made his first clock out of laurel wood from the mountains around his home.

In 1807, Thomas partnered with Eli Terry and Silas Hoadley to form a clock company called Terry, Thomas & Hoadley. Over the next three years, the firm produced around 400 wall clocks. In 1813, Thomas sold his share of the company and moved to Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut, where he established his clock factory. He gained a reputation for producing beautiful grandfather clocks and tower clocks. 

When Thomas died in 1859, his son, Aaron, took over the company. The Seth Thomas Clock Company continued operating successfully for several more decades. In 1913, it produced the four-faced tower clock that still stands in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. 

In 1875, Plymouth Hollow was incorporated under the name Thomaston in his honor. The company went out of business in 2009. 

Find antique Seth Thomas clocks for sale on 1stDibs.

Pay tribute to a history of rich and diverse musical traditions that have taken shape all over the world by decorating your home with a collection of antique and vintage musical instruments.

Whether you’re playing them or merely displaying them, vintage musical instruments, when cared for properly, can be a wonderful addition to any space. At between four and five feet in length, an elegant early-1900s Steinway & Sons baby grand piano will undoubtedly steal the show if you’re thinking of yielding some precious real estate to one of these American classics, but maybe you’re simply shopping for art to warm the bare walls of your new apartment or weekend home.

For your living room, maybe you’ve already hunted down portraits by Gered Mankowitz, a celebrated 1960s-era photographer who spent his life capturing iconic images of music’s biggest stars. If you’ve got more space to work with there — or perhaps you need some entertainment room ideas — consider positioning an old guitar as a focal point. If a room has no distinguishing architectural features, you could create a prominent focal point with trending paint colors, stylish shelving, an arrangement of flowers or by wall-mounting a spectacularly aging early-20th-century guitar or other stringed instrument.

Alternatively, much in the way that you might group a collection of artwork to hang salon-style, with a little help from strong hanging wire or some wall hooks, vintage brass instruments such as a gong, French horn or trumpet can help elevate a home office or complement the efforts you’ve made to ensure a welcoming vibe in your home’s entryway. Bells or antique wind instruments can add provocative metallic contrasts to dark woods as tabletop decorative objects. Think of them as eye-catching ornamental flourishes that you can bring to end tables in a common area, to the top of a desk or to a mid-century storage cabinet.

Bring culture and creativity into your space with decades-old plywood tabletop radios or musical instruments from all over the world — be they drums from Africa or harps from France. Even if you’re not exactly getting the band back together, we can promise that the range of antique and vintage instruments on 1stDibs can help strike a meaningful chord in your interior design plan.