Reading Time at HSNY: Money Is Time
Image 1: A Bulova desk clock in the shape of a $20 coin.
This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarians. Today’s post was written by St John Karp.
People love to tell me that time is money. They lean forward and whisper it conspiratorially, imparting the gift of their wisdom to the poor, misguided librarian who’s spent too long around his books to know anything of the grandeur and majesty of the universe. And it’s true, I do spend a lot of time mooning over the books in the library at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), and all those books will tell you the exact same thing: of course time is money! At least, it is in modern Western culture.
Image 2: Bulova’s 140th anniversary Liberty watch.
Dr. Sara Schechner, in her wonderful book about sundials “Time of Our Lives,” writes, “From the fourteenth century to the seventeenth, as feudal society built on the rhythms of the countryside gave way to more urban, commercial society, time became a precious commodity to be budgeted and spent wisely.” This vision of time as a commodity is so deeply rooted that it’s apparent even in young adult literature like Michael Ende’s “Momo,” a lovely parable about the sinister gray gentlemen who make everyone more efficient so they can steal their time. Only in “Momo,” the gray gentlemen don’t save or spend people’s time, they roll it up into cigars and smoke it!
If time is money then it only stands to reason that money can also be time. In this case, literally! It must be something about the shape of a coin that invites the comparison with a clock dial. The Bulova desk clock in the shape of a $20 coin (Image 1) is a gorgeous example of a clock that is made to look like money. From the outside we see the striding figure of Liberty, and inside we find not only the clock but also the other side of the coin framed by the numerals of the dial. Bulova pulled the same trick in 2015 for its 140th anniversary with a wristwatch (Image 2) designed to look like a 19th-century coin with the profile of Liberty.
Bulova is of course not the only one to make watches that look like coins, but I think my favorite example is this delightful Ulysse Nardin wristwatch from 1985 made with a real $20 gold coin (Images 3 and 4):
Image 3: Ulysse Nardin’s $20 coin watch.
Image 4: Ulysse Nardin’s $20 coin watch, open.
The coin makes up the outer case and when opened reveals the actual watch which can be angled up on a hinge.
Image 5: A 1837 “hard times token” from Smith’s Clock Establishment.
I do wonder if designs like this that incorporate real coins or coin designs just come from the fact that coins and clocks are the same shape. In HSNY’s exhibit of early American pocket watches, you can see watches from 1715 to the 1830s, an era when owning a timepiece would have been prohibitively expensive for most people. By the end of the 19th century, however, industrialization and mass production led to the development of the “dollar watch” which could be purchased for as cheaply as a dollar. Putting the words “dollar” and “watch” right next to each other must have put the idea in people’s heads because the 20th century is just lousy with examples of coin-themed watches and clocks.
Interestingly, the overlap between numismatics goes both ways: there is an enormous number of coins and tokens that are designed to look like clocks. The example on the left, for instance, is an 1837 “hard times token” (Image 5). These were struck between 1833 and 1843 during a time of financial crisis in the United States and served as makeshift currency. The “time is money” token shown here was advertising for Smith’s Clock Establishment at 7 ½ Bowery, New York — a charming piece of history, not just horological but also from HSNY’s home in New York.
Image 6: A French token from 1600: “the beginning of a better century.”
This charming French token from 1600 (Image 6) is one of the older horological items I’ve found. It doesn’t look like a clock exactly but it does depict one. The reverse shows King Henri IV of France sitting and facing Time, personified as a faun, who is indicating the time on the dial. The Latin inscription around the rim reads, “SAECLI MELIORIS ORIGO” (“the beginning of a better century”). I think we can all get behind that sentiment.
But if lookalikes are more your style, then the one that really takes the biscuit is this 250 ngultrum coin from Bhutan (Image 7):
Image 7: 250 ngultrum coin from Bhutan, 2004.
The 250 ngultrum coin is made of silver and comes with its own gnomon which can be popped out of a groove in the center of the coin and inserted into a hole to transform the coin into a working sundial. Incredible! We actually have a whole book about pocket sundials, “A Dial in Your Poke,” but even that didn’t predict a sundial you could spend. This coin also sports a rather funky-looking sun and reiterates the phrase that started us off down this dark, benighted alley: time is money.
Another entry in the oddly functional category is this advertising token for the Manhattan Watch Company (Images 8 and 9):
Image 8: A token/amulet advertising the Manhattan Watch Company.
Image 9: A token/amulet advertising the Manhattan Watch Company, reverse.
The token is designed to look like a pocket watch right down to the crown. On one side it features a rather handsome Roman dial (with the weirdly specific time of 3:42), while the other side tells the owner that the token is ⅗ the size of a watch. Did they only sell one size of watch? Who can say! It’s advertising but it’s also quite functional, and the hole in the top means you could cut a jaunty figure strolling around town with this thing hanging from your neck.
Image 10: A “coin watch” from Le Roy’s Jewelers.
Image 11: A “coin watch” from Le Roy’s Jewelers, reverse.
This rather handsome token (Images 10 and 11) is good for a $20 discount on a Gruen at Le Roy’s Jewelers. Interestingly the inscription refers to it as a “coin watch” and, true to form, the dial on the obverse is more likely to be a watch than a clock because it has a seconds hand. This token was also designed to be worn around the neck, which seems odd because you could wear it or spend it but you couldn’t do both. Maybe you were expected to wear it just in case of emergencies, so if suddenly you have an urgent need for a Gruen watch you can race across town and spend your token breathless yet secure in the knowledge that your $20 discount has saved the day.
Image 12: A token from the 9 O’Clock Club.
If you’re looking to cultivate an air of mystery, you can always join an exclusive club. If the Elks, the Masons, and the Order of Odd Fellows are insufficient for your purposes, then you can always join the 9 O’Clock Club and carry this token to prove your membership (Image 12). What is the 9 O’Clock Club, I hear you ask? Not a clue. What do they do? No idea. The only thing we can know is that no one at the 9 O’Clock Club appears to have ever used a clock or they would know that you don’t make your hour hand the same size as your minute hand. In other words it could be the 9 O’Clock Club or it could just as easily be the Quarter to Twelve Club. It also tends to be a good idea for your minute hand to be attached to your central pinion and not floating jauntily in space like a rebel without a cause.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the kinds of coins that have horological elements. Who knew there would be so many coins that look like clocks and watches, and so many clocks and watches that look like coins? One thing I can tell you from anecdotal evidence is that a lot of the watch collectors who visit our library at HSNY are also coin collectors. It’s not hard to see the overlap — both watches and coins can be as cheap or expensive as you like, and they’re both high status items.
What’s intriguing about coins, though, is that they are so enduring. You can buy a coin from ancient Egypt or Rome for about $50. They made literally millions and millions of the things. They sit and wait out the centuries and they never change. Clocks and watches, on the other hand, are like living things. They are delicate, they require care and maintenance, and without someone to tend to them they break down and are thrown away. The union between the permanent and the ephemeral, then, is an uneasy one. Time and money might look a lot alike, but they’re not interchangeable. I still want that Bhutan sundial, though, and if anyone can wangle me an invitation to the 9 O’Clock Club, please write to me.
