Mastercrafters Bakelite Swinging Girl Clock Price Guide

1940’s Mastercraft “Girl on a Swing” Clock

Description

1940’s Mastercraft “Girl on a Swing” Clock By the 1940’s, clocks were elaborate figural displays for mantles or walls, including everything from ships and steering wheels, to stagecoaches and horses, and little animated figures like my children on the swings. produced by Mastercrafters Clock and Radio Company in the 1948-49 timeframe. It’s Model 119, and called “Mantle Swingtime” or “Girl on a Swing.” It was also the first motion clock to be made by Mastercrafters. But like the United Metal Goods clock, this has a little light, which lights up the scene behind it. And the figure swings in time to the clock motion. Each clock uses a landscape print– popular of its time, to create the background for the figures making up the pendulum. Roger Russell indicates there were two types of prints used in the “Girl on a Swing” mantle clock. One, like mine here, has the little girl sitting in front of a little country house with a separate plastic fence in front of it. In another scene, apparently, she sits in front of a more modern-looking ranch home. The print is in the Atkinson Fox style. This clock came in two finishes– “green onyx” and a “walnut,” similar to the faux wood look of the United Metal Goods clock. The Girl on a Swing also came in a wall clock version. The material these clocks are made of is called “tenite,” which Wikipedia indicates was an early plastic– a cellulosic thermoplastic, to be specific– first created in 1929 . It was manufactured by Eastman Chemicals, using softwood as a raw material. The light is operational but clock is not functioning.