Seth G. Atwood

In 1971, Seth G. Atwood founded the Time Museum at the Clock Tower Resort in Rockford, Illinois.[2] The resort was originally built by the Atwood's family in 1968.[12] In 1980s, the museum became one of the leading horological museums in the world, with nearly 1,500 pieces of horological collection, including atomic clocks.[2][5][7] The museum's notable collection included ancient Chinese sundials and water clocks by Su Song, early pendulum clocks, a quarter-repeater by Thomas Tompion, an astronomical and world time clock by Christian Gebhard, the Harrison wooden regulator clock, the Richard Glynn mechanical equinoctial standing Ring-Dial, and so on.[2][5][7][13] In 1990s, the museum attracted over 50,000 visitors each year.[7]

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago kept and displayed a large portion of the original collection from the Time Museum until February 2004.[14]

However, the museum was shut down in March 1999 when United Realty Corp., a company owned by Atwood family interests, sold the Clock Tower Resort to Regency Hotel Management.[2][5][12] As a result, the majority of the museum's collection went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and was on display from January 2001 to February 2004.[5][15] In 2004, a campaign to raise US$35 million to buy the collection for Time Museum failed, and the collection was broken up with its timepieces sent to auctions.[15][16]

Over the years, hundreds of items from the museum's original collection went up for sale in Sotheby's auctions, and several pieces became the world's most expensive watches and clocks ever auctioned.[2][13][17][18] These included the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication and the Breguet Sympathique Clock No.128 & 5009 (Duc d'Orléans Breguet Sympathique, owned by Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans), which was originally restored by English watchmaker George Daniels at the request of Seth G. Atwood.[2][19] The Patek Philippe pocket watch currently holds the title of the most expensive watch ever sold at auction, fetching US$24 million US dollars (CHF 23,237,000) in Sotheby's Geneva auction on November 11, 2014.[2][9][10] The Breguet Sympathique Clock, on the other hand, currently ranks as one of the most expensive clocks ever sold at auction, fetching US$6.80 million in Sotheby's New York auction on December 4, 2012.[20]

During the quartz crisis in 1970s, Seth G. Atwood commissioned a mechanical timepiece from English watchmaker George Daniels to fundamentally improve the performance of mechanical watches.[21] As a result, Daniels invented the revolutionary coaxial escapement in 1974 and patented it in 1980.[21][22][23] The Atwood watch for Seth G. Atwood was completed in 1976.[24]

The coaxial escapement was later used in the watches of watch manufacturers such as Omega SA.[25][26]