The Main Event: Uncovering the Detex Guardsman Clock

It all started with a weird looking thing that caught my eye on eBay. I had no idea what it was, but I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. It just looked so cool. This is called a Detex Guardsman clock, and it introduced me to a whole new world of timekeeping mechanisms.

As a prison guard or security guard, having a reliable way to keep track of your rounds was crucial. That's where the Detex Guardsman came in. Weighing around 10 pounds, this full wind-up mechanism would help you stay on schedule. But what made it so special? The answer lies in its clever design.

Each station had a little key with a number stamped onto it. As you made your rounds, you'd come up to a station and insert the corresponding key into the Detex Guardsman. With a click, the mechanism would emboss a roll of paper at that exact time to prove that you were there. But that's not all - the clock also had a chain key that allowed you to set the time.

But what I find truly fascinating about this clock is its mechanical genius. The Detex Guardsman uses a sprocket mechanism to run the paper through, and it has a little telltale to prevent tampering. When you lift the lid, it makes a mark on the paper to show that it was opened. It's a clever way to keep things honest.

The clock also had a winding key, which allowed you to wind it up for the week-long operation. But what's truly impressive is how much abuse these clocks could withstand. Originally designed to be robust and long-running, they were meant to stand up to rough handling.

As I examined mine, I couldn't help but notice its steampunk-inspired leather housing. It was a far cry from modern technology, with RFID tags and digital displays. But there's something charming about these old clocks that I just can't get enough of. They're like relics from another era, a reminder of the ingenuity and craftsmanship that went into creating them.

I've seen other manufacturers produce similar clocks, but mine is certainly one of the most interesting and distinct-looking. With its leather smell and intricate design, it's clear why this clock caught my eye on eBay. But what really sets it apart is its place in history. Made from 1920s to the late 1980s, these clocks were used extensively in facilities to ensure guards were sticking to their rounds.

So if you're looking for a fascinating piece of clockwork history, look no further than the Detex Guardsman. With its mechanical genius and steampunk charm, it's a true timepiece treasure. And who knows? You might just find one on eBay someday.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey it's shawn back with another clock show-and-tell i had i had too many from my collection to go over last time so if you didn't catch the first one tune in to learn all about flip clocks and film clocks and new micron clocks but i had i had a few oddballs that kind of didn't fit in uh with those so i thought we'd do like a little uh standalone on these guys so um this is just one that i picked up recently um that i obviously it was just visually striking it's like what the heck is going on here and um the other thing that caught my eye was it's uh it's a remindo timer and it's made right here in oakland so i thought that was kind of cool i haven't investigated if uh the james clock company is still around but uh regardless i thought this was a neat uh a neat item so uh what this turns out to be is it is a clock that has each lever is a a is an alarm so rather than your standard alarm clock where you can just do the one you can literally push in as many of these levers you want and it'll go off at each of those points and i think most of them are divided up into like uh five to ten minutes and so you can like go five minutes ten minutes whatever so and you can pick pick multiple reminders around there so and then it just basically does its thing and yep so it's usually it's using the standard uh like a piezoelectric vibrating spring uh piece of spring steel in there very similar to this guy that we looked at in the first video but i just i love the reminder minder uh and uh it still works yeah so that that was just a fun one that i picked up that i thought was visually interesting um this is another kind of weird one this one i haven't gotten working yet because it what i can from what i can gather on this first it weighs a ton i swear it's about 15 pounds and it's it's basically a very very fancy stopwatch and um i suspect it was used more like in scientific labs like as a precision machine and it uses a special cord which did not come with it so i haven't gotten this guy up and running yet but i just thought it was a nice nice vintage looking piece with this nice wrinkle paint finish so we'll get that going soon but the main one that actually started this whole clock rabbit hole thing that i went down is this weird looking thing the the the clock canteen um and i i came across this on ebay and i could not figure out for the life of me what the heck it was um and it just looks so cool so this is called a detects the text guardsman and it introduced me to a whole new world of time keeping mechanisms these are guardsmen's clocks so say you're a prison guard or a security guard and you're making your rounds and they want to make sure that you're actually doing your rounds and doing them in a timely manner you would haul this thing around which once again probably weighs about 10 pounds and it would keep track of uh when you checked into different stations so the way it works is it's a it's a full wind-up mechanism and we'll take a look at that in a minute and there would be these little station boxes around the facility and each one has this chain key so you'd be doing your rounds you come up to a station has this key and each key is stamped with a number so for the the station number and you would take your guardsman clock and you'd put the stamp key in there and you would click it and we're going to take a look here in a minute but there's a roll of paper in here it embosses the paper at that exact time to prove that you were at that station and doing your rounds it's it's such a fascinating thing and the great thing about these is these were made virtually unchanged from the 20s through like the late 80s they were still using these um obviously in today's uh technological era with rfids and stuff like that a lot of this has been completely replaced by digital stuff but i love the fact that these are used so late into the 80s and um and they're just fascinating they got this like great steampunk like leather case they weigh a ton um and uh let's let's take a peek inside shall we so um mine is a little finicky right now i need to do uh some maintenance work on it um but basically the supervisor would have the master key that would open these guys up there we go and here's the inside of the detex garden mine is from 1986 so probably pretty late in the in the run of these things but i've seen uh other ones adam of course had one i was like adam you got to see this cool thing i was like yeah i found one of those for years uh that was more jamie than adam but you know you know what i meant um so anyway so yeah so but the mechanism is is very similar some so mine in particular uses a roll of paper um so this basically is delineated into times and uh it has a sprocket mechanism that would uh run this through and uh and what's interesting is not only does the um the station key emboss the paper at the appropriate time but there is a mechanism that when you lift the open this lid it also makes a mark on the paper to show that it was opened so they didn't want anybody messing with them or you know tweaking things um so it has a little telltale in case something like that would happen it also would have a winding key so it had a pretty traditional square winding uh thing here and you could wind it up yeah there's a setting and a winding uh i can't wind my right now because i already wound it this particular model would run an entire week on one complete wind which is an engineering feat in itself and i had to put up to a lot of bouncing and trouncing and like being moved around and probably dropped and thrown around stuff like that and then the key also acted as another post here would allow you to actually set the time and um and then once you use your role you take it out you could read all the markings on it and then replace it with a new rule but but really robust uh long-running clocks that were meant to stand up to a lot of abuse and originally uh it would have had a little shield that uh covered the the station porthole mine has has broken off long ago but um just a fascinating piece of clock uh history there are other manufacturers out there um uh who also make these but i i feel that out of all the ones that i found this is the most interesting and distinct looking with its its steampunk uh leather housing and uh it's got that good leather smell so the detex guardsman uh used from 1920s through the 80s uh to make sure that you were sticking to your rounds so check them out they're fun and uh way a ton uh so hope you enjoyed this we will see you next time on another fun show to tell and this is shawn from tested signing outhey it's shawn back with another clock show-and-tell i had i had too many from my collection to go over last time so if you didn't catch the first one tune in to learn all about flip clocks and film clocks and new micron clocks but i had i had a few oddballs that kind of didn't fit in uh with those so i thought we'd do like a little uh standalone on these guys so um this is just one that i picked up recently um that i obviously it was just visually striking it's like what the heck is going on here and um the other thing that caught my eye was it's uh it's a remindo timer and it's made right here in oakland so i thought that was kind of cool i haven't investigated if uh the james clock company is still around but uh regardless i thought this was a neat uh a neat item so uh what this turns out to be is it is a clock that has each lever is a a is an alarm so rather than your standard alarm clock where you can just do the one you can literally push in as many of these levers you want and it'll go off at each of those points and i think most of them are divided up into like uh five to ten minutes and so you can like go five minutes ten minutes whatever so and you can pick pick multiple reminders around there so and then it just basically does its thing and yep so it's usually it's using the standard uh like a piezoelectric vibrating spring uh piece of spring steel in there very similar to this guy that we looked at in the first video but i just i love the reminder minder uh and uh it still works yeah so that that was just a fun one that i picked up that i thought was visually interesting um this is another kind of weird one this one i haven't gotten working yet because it what i can from what i can gather on this first it weighs a ton i swear it's about 15 pounds and it's it's basically a very very fancy stopwatch and um i suspect it was used more like in scientific labs like as a precision machine and it uses a special cord which did not come with it so i haven't gotten this guy up and running yet but i just thought it was a nice nice vintage looking piece with this nice wrinkle paint finish so we'll get that going soon but the main one that actually started this whole clock rabbit hole thing that i went down is this weird looking thing the the the clock canteen um and i i came across this on ebay and i could not figure out for the life of me what the heck it was um and it just looks so cool so this is called a detects the text guardsman and it introduced me to a whole new world of time keeping mechanisms these are guardsmen's clocks so say you're a prison guard or a security guard and you're making your rounds and they want to make sure that you're actually doing your rounds and doing them in a timely manner you would haul this thing around which once again probably weighs about 10 pounds and it would keep track of uh when you checked into different stations so the way it works is it's a it's a full wind-up mechanism and we'll take a look at that in a minute and there would be these little station boxes around the facility and each one has this chain key so you'd be doing your rounds you come up to a station has this key and each key is stamped with a number so for the the station number and you would take your guardsman clock and you'd put the stamp key in there and you would click it and we're going to take a look here in a minute but there's a roll of paper in here it embosses the paper at that exact time to prove that you were at that station and doing your rounds it's it's such a fascinating thing and the great thing about these is these were made virtually unchanged from the 20s through like the late 80s they were still using these um obviously in today's uh technological era with rfids and stuff like that a lot of this has been completely replaced by digital stuff but i love the fact that these are used so late into the 80s and um and they're just fascinating they got this like great steampunk like leather case they weigh a ton um and uh let's let's take a peek inside shall we so um mine is a little finicky right now i need to do uh some maintenance work on it um but basically the supervisor would have the master key that would open these guys up there we go and here's the inside of the detex garden mine is from 1986 so probably pretty late in the in the run of these things but i've seen uh other ones adam of course had one i was like adam you got to see this cool thing i was like yeah i found one of those for years uh that was more jamie than adam but you know you know what i meant um so anyway so yeah so but the mechanism is is very similar some so mine in particular uses a roll of paper um so this basically is delineated into times and uh it has a sprocket mechanism that would uh run this through and uh and what's interesting is not only does the um the station key emboss the paper at the appropriate time but there is a mechanism that when you lift the open this lid it also makes a mark on the paper to show that it was opened so they didn't want anybody messing with them or you know tweaking things um so it has a little telltale in case something like that would happen it also would have a winding key so it had a pretty traditional square winding uh thing here and you could wind it up yeah there's a setting and a winding uh i can't wind my right now because i already wound it this particular model would run an entire week on one complete wind which is an engineering feat in itself and i had to put up to a lot of bouncing and trouncing and like being moved around and probably dropped and thrown around stuff like that and then the key also acted as another post here would allow you to actually set the time and um and then once you use your role you take it out you could read all the markings on it and then replace it with a new rule but but really robust uh long-running clocks that were meant to stand up to a lot of abuse and originally uh it would have had a little shield that uh covered the the station porthole mine has has broken off long ago but um just a fascinating piece of clock uh history there are other manufacturers out there um uh who also make these but i i feel that out of all the ones that i found this is the most interesting and distinct looking with its its steampunk uh leather housing and uh it's got that good leather smell so the detex guardsman uh used from 1920s through the 80s uh to make sure that you were sticking to your rounds so check them out they're fun and uh way a ton uh so hope you enjoyed this we will see you next time on another fun show to tell and this is shawn from tested signing out\n"