Warmink was another Dutch clock manufacturer, from Almelo in the Netherlands. This clock has a complication – the moon phase dial. The moon orbits the earth in around 27.3 days. The New Moon (i.e. the moon isn’t visible, as here!) occurs when the Earth’s shadow covers the moon. For the rest of the time, there’s a crescent or gibbous moon, and there’s a full moon when the earth’s shadow does not impinge. On this clock, the moon phase complication is operated by a toothed wheel with 59 notches, that is advanced by one notch every 24 hours. It drives two moon images that are partly hidden by the masked area (there’s only ever one visible). I’ve often wondered at the point of the moon phase; it really just confirms what you can see perfectly easily. It also presents a fairly poor approximation of the shape of moon when it’s gibbous (i.e. neither full, new or crescent shaped – think about how a half-moon ought to look!). But this is a nice, decorative clock with a balance wheel movement that keeps excellent time. You can see that it has two winding arbours – the one on the left is for the strike mechanism.
