Different books and antique clocks experts may call the same type of clock by different names according to geographical differences and trade custom, sometimes causing confusion. What may sometimes be called a "Bracket clock" in England may simply be called a "Shelf clock" or "Mantle clocks" by a US dealer.

The family of antique clocks can be looked as a collection of specific groups of clocks. You can break it down into several groups, or families. Take beehive clocks, which can either be gothic beehives or ripple beehives. Conversely, the term "drop trunk" clock is actually an umbrella term that comprises schoolhouse clocks, act of parliament clocks, wall regulators, tavern clocks, short drop clocks, octagon clocks, and so on.

Advertising clocks is a collective term used for clocks for promotional reasons which show advertising somewhere on the clock case or dial. The clock may also be used as a portion of the advertising, such as when a clock is integrated into a bigger sign. Most often found as shelf or wall clocks, or more rarely as Long-case or 'Grandfather' clocks, these are wonderful antique wall clocks.

Mankind has always recognized the passing of time and has tried to measure and record that passing. The simple alarm clock at your bedside table owes its existence to more than 6,000 years of thinking about time and tinkering with devices to accurately mark its passage.

The very first early mechanical clocks, which didn't have pendulums, were developed in the last half of the thirteenth century, probably by monks from central Europe, and were placed within the church. They did not have dials or hands and only struck bells on the hour.

It is probable that such gadgets were put in church belfries so as to utilize the bells that were already there. It took more than a century for people to add dials and hands one could see. Such old clocks were enormous and were crafted by neighborhood blacksmiths from heavyweight iron. By the early 1400s, little household clocks came into being. They were most likely created by area gun makers or locksmiths, and they are currently quite costly.