In this volume we deal with the collecting period, which is the stage prior to this, but it is possible to look ahead as well as backward. Factory-made clocks will be made, perfect timekeepers without doubt. But there is still the great possibility that the clockmaker may seize his own and wrest the laurels from the impersonal syndicate. To him who can add personality to a clock--that something which parts put together with mechanical precision lack--there awaits a glorious heritage. The soul of the living clock must echo the soul of its human maker. The old masters have left to posterity living organisms which will not die. It rests with the public to say whether they prefer the gramophone to the singer, the piano-player to the accomplished pianist. If the clock of tomorrow is to be a mere soulless machine, the demand will be met. But if it is to revert to that higher plane of the old masters of clockmaking, it is for those who love beauty and truth to make their desires imperative. For the moment, therefore, the study of the old and the perfect claims the loving attention of the collector who sees new lamps, like those which the magician in Aladdin's palace proffered for sale, in place of old. =What to Value and what to Collect.=--The appreciation of old clocks is a natural gift. To one his mezzotints, to another his Chelsea china, to another his old silver plate. But to all lovers of fine furniture the English clock appeals sympathetically. It has a twofold claim to recognition. It is, if it be a fine old English clock by an English maker, a reliable piece of mechanism as a timekeeper. It is in certain periods representative, in its marquetry or lacquered case, of styles of decoration and design now only equalled by copyists. If it is by one of the leading English clockmakers its movements are unequalled. It stands as a monument to a great scientific craftsmanship now almost extinct. The great English clockmakers of the first flight "were not of an age but for all time." Roughly speaking, the first twenty-five years of the eighteenth century and the first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century represent two periods when the clockmaker was doing splendid work. The clocks of the intervening period are of value as representing work of extreme carefulness, and are of course worthy of the attention and admiration of the collector. In the first period a crowd of skilled scientific clockmakers followed each other in rapid succession and brought the art of horology to perfection. During this first period the clock cases and the clock dials came under artistic impulses not since equalled. It therefore follows that for these two reasons the clocks of the first period are most highly appreciated and are of great value.