Glancing at your smartphone clock is probably the most convenient way of checking the time in recorded history. Regardless, there are times when you’d feel ten times cooler if you were able to whip out a steampunk pocket watch any time someone asked for the hour.
It’s fun to think about, and no doubt a few of you good readers have taken to using a pocket watch, but there’s no denying the ease of a smartphone clock. It’s just one less thing to carry around with you.
Thankfully, there are other ways to let your sci-fi subgenre-obsessed mind take control of the time—with a steampunk clock.
No matter what contraptions they come up with next, household clocks will always be useful, so there’s no point in just getting a black wall clock from Target and calling it bellissimo.
Steampunk clocks are here to provide the time and a retrofuturistic atmosphere that will make your houseguests think a steam-powered automaton is in the next room preparing their dinner.
Isn’t that the environment you were going for?
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1. Octopus Clock
This steampunk clock would scare the beard off Captain Nemo, but that won’t stop you from putting it front and center in your living room.
The mere sight of a bronze octopus with gears and goggles decorating its body is a sure way to weed out your real friends from your fake ones. The fakes ones will glance at it unimpressed, while your real friends will ask if they can pet it.
From a certain point of view, the clock face in the octopus’ head resembles the front of a vintage diving helmet. This adds another deep-sea element to your clock and what may be a morbid backstory to this little character—if you’re deep sea diving, don’t ask an octopus for the time.
2. Cogwheel Clock
Hang this in your house and people will think you hijacked a train, blew it up with dynamite, then reassembled it into a clock. Thankfully, this thing runs on batteries, not steam.
The cogwheel clock is definitely a mood-setter not only for your house, but your behavior as well. Walk by it a few times and you’ll start dressing like H.G. Wells or Charlotte Bronte while brandishing a ray gun.
If someone has a problem with that, refuse to tell them what time it is and escort them out with your energy weapon.
Some people don’t appreciate fine art and the attitude that comes with it.
3. Wise Owl Clock
No, it’s not Bubo from Clash of the Titans. It’s your new clock, lending a watchful eye and some steampunk style to your already impressive living room.
Perched on the wall like a sentinel of wisdom, your houseguests may think you’ve become a member of Bohemian Grove and this is your members-only gift; or maybe you’ve been studying the secrets of the dollar bill a little too obsessively.
Maybe you have. Or maybe you just like owls with sprockets for eyes.
4. Globetrotter’s Gear Clock
Did you ever think that a wall clock would inspire you to travel the world? The minute you hang up this clock is the same minute you order a safari hat and a ticket to Botswana.
The globe, compass, and arrow all give your houseguests an idea of your wanderlust, while the pipes and gears symbolize the fact that you wish you could travel via airship-locomotive like this one:
It’s an all-purpose, all-telling, time-telling piece of equipment fit for retrofuturistic flying machines as well as any room in the house. That’s versatility.
5. Hot Air Balloon Table Clock
Technology is the great equalizer in the world of steampunk, propelling us all into a bright future via steam-powered machinery.
So why did we keep hot air balloons?
For the same reason we have them in real-life—it’s a party balloon that’s been blown up to half the size of the Statue of Liberty and takes you on a 5-10 mph trip through the skies. In many ways it’s more thrilling than a jet plane going 500 mph.
Don’t agree? Here’s a steampunk clock that says otherwise. Use it for inspiration, as a paperweight, and to tell when it’s dinnertime.
6. Double-sided Terminal Clock
Imagine you’re in New York’s Grand Central Terminal but it looks like something this:
After studying the image, it may be tempting to redecorate your entire house and try to fit a steam engine where the couch used to be, but it might be best to start small.
This double-sided wall clock is one of the best pieces to start you off. There’s no gears, cogs, top hats, or souped-up gas masks garnishing this little item—it just has a timeless (pun intended) quality to it that makes it seem as at home in the Victorian Era as its steam-powered alternative.
7. Dragon Table Clock
While your neighbors are busy hanging up that plastic fish that sings “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” you know there are much better options as a follower of steampunk.
Like dragons.
While this gear-covered reptile doesn’t breathe fire to mark the hour (though that would be pretty great), she still looks like a fierce automaton who will stop at nothing to make sure her master knows the time of day.
Loyalty and industrial machinery—a match made in the fiery bowels of a steampunk forge.
8. Bronze Gear Clock
For a budget clock, this one still manages to look like something P.T. Barnum would have owned if he had been a steam-powered cyborg with a phonograph attached to his head.
Parts of the clock look a bit “cheap,” but you’d also want something less expensive if you had a circus filled with pricey automatons to run.
But if you’re feeling less like a “circus-owner” and more like a “well-respected-socialite-with-a-mechanized-phantom-of-the-opera-mask”, then there’s a much more expensive version you can check out.
9. Steampunk Spirit Clock
Pouring yourself a drink from a decanter can be enough to make you feel like you’re in the past, but how about adding some steam-energy and a clock?
Now you’re not only pouring a drink, you’re making your houseguests wonder if you’ve traveled from an alternate reality before you invited them over for dinner.
While this may not be the most practical clock for everyday use (it’s pretty small), it’s a very different way of telling time. Half useful machine, half container of human desire—that has to be a winner somehow.
10. Numeral/Number Gear Clock
If you can’t decide between a numeral clock or a number clock, but you absolutely do want a giant cogwheel giving you the time of day, then you’ve stumbled onto something.
This piece doesn’t have the brass-colored accents like most other steampunk clocks. Instead, it’s all-black and all-business—something a steam-energized vampire might have hanging above his gear-covered coffin.
Mixing gothic flair with steam power is like peanut butter and chocolate (or B positive and AB positive if you actually are a vampire). It’s darkhouse deco.
