Howard miller ball clocks  

i own a lot of the Nelson ...
i own a lot of the Nelson howard miller clocks the multi colored ball clock came out in in the early 1950's and a few years later that solid orange came out .
Those our great clocks I have bought 4 from Vitra even thoe they are new 8 years ago. they are still going to be valuable.
The only reason i bought them was i like the quartz movement and the old clock movements had the electric, and when you are as obsessive as me and have to have all the clocks, it makes them hard to display on the walls.
A interesting article i read was those new clocks are considered to be highly collectible as they were authorized by the estate of George Nelson,
Howard Miller kept the rights to two clocks the black astrick, and the black ball clock,
I have talked with the current owners of Howard Miller and begged them to see if they could do a reissue
they told me they did in 1990 and the clocks did not do very well , that is when Vitra picked the clocks up and made a deal with the Nelson Estate. and they have been doing great ever since, funny how that goes, you would think the original company like Howard miller would want to protect there valuable assets, like bubble lamps and clocks but i guess they want to sell those old doubty grandfather clocks. To the over 60 crowd.

so the top clock looks right...
so the top clock looks right to you ?
money wise what do you think of $600 as a price is it Expensive ? right price ?

those clocks sell from 35...
those clocks sell from 350 to 600.00 the ball clocks are at the lower end of the Nelson clocks, cause there are quite a few still out there ,
The star spokes and spindles are bringing good money with the steering wheel and the eye clock bringing the most money .
For some reason his ceramic meridian clocks made in the 60's are bringing from 450 to 900.00 on ebay they are very popular and in demand, just several years ago i was buying them for 50 to 100 bucks each.

Orange clock not the oldest??
I may be misinformed,but I was under the impression that the Nelson Ball Clocks with the wood case and the center plug(as the bottom one has) were the earlier ones.

Thats what I figured too.I...
Thats what I figured too.I asked because I felt it was being mis catalogued as a 50s model (the metal backed top one).
The other thing is does anyone know of any site that shows you a manufacturing time line based on the label the clock was issued with ?

you are right the wood c...
you are right the wood case ones came first then the metal plate ones i did not look that close at the picture at first but i do own the clocks

LRF have you any idea when...
LRF have you any idea when the metal backs were introduced ?

The story acording to LRF
The story on the clock goes that Howard Miller wanted to expand the clock unit in 1947 they talked to George Nelson who had the office of George Nelson out side of his duties as director of design for Herman Miller Nelson ask Irving Harper his main designer and right hand man to come up with three potential prototypes
The first being the ball clock starburst,asterisk,and then theAs you have more than likely heard one night Nelson had over to the house Bucky Fuller Isamu Noguchi and Irving Harper when the two were developing some of the clocks ,As the story goes Noguchi and Fuller took out scratch paper as they saw some crude but not finished designes , The next morning after every left Nelson saw a a rollof drafting paper
he unrolled it and there it was the ball clock Nelson swears he did not do it and Irving Harper said he did not. The both came to the conclusion that it was Isamu who had actually designed it cause he was a genius for doing stupid things and making something extrodinary out of. But it was Irving Harper who cleaned the design up and had it put in to production The ball clocks were showing up in Herman miller ads for basic storage units and Eames DCM Chairs in the 1950 catalog's for Miller The one you have with the wood is the original made in 1947 the metal plates came in 1953 when they changed the movements to be the same in all the clocks that Howard Miller had in the line , also Irving Harper is the same man who designed the Marshmellow sofa for the office of George Nelson in 1955 and went into a limited production for Herman miler in 1956.

Price for antique Howard Miller ball clock
Bought in the 50's, it is a natural birch George Nelson design Howard Miller clock with a serial number of 4755 on the back. What can I sell it for? It runs and is accurate.
sasa

Wood bodies
The orange one, with the wooden body, is clearly the older one. My understanding is that the clocks were made with wooden bodies for only the first 2 or 3 years of production. Vast majority of clocks you see are with the metal bodies.
As for telling age by the labels, I'm not too sure; but my sense is that the clear labels are more recent than the yellow labels.
Value? Not sure anymore. But the multi-color ones are rarer than the single color ones, as a general matter (though orange is rarer than natural or black), and thus fetch more (everything else -- eg, condition -- being equal).

Apocryphal Irving Harper attributions
Just to repeat something that's been said before on this Forum: The only source that says that Irving Harper is principally (or even solely) responsible for designing the ball clock (or other items) is ... IRVING HARPER himself! So I think we need to take this with a large grain of salt.
My personal view is that Nelson's account is the more believable one.

and i quote from the " The...
and i quote from the " The design of modern design" by George Nelson
The next morning after everyone left Nelson saw a a roll of drafting paper
he unrolled it and there it was the ball clock, Nelson swears he did not do it and Irving Harper said he did not. They both came to the conclusion that it was Isamu who had actually designed it cause he was a genius for doing stupid things and making something extrodinary out of. But it was Irving Harper who cleaned the design up and had it put in to production
Nothing to take with a grain of salt ...
I never read were Irvin Harper said he was the person who designed the Ball clock , The design was a collaborative effort and Irvin Harper cleaned up the sketch and got the design ready for production.