01907_Summer_2019 WEB

20 | 01907
Standing
the test
of time
BY THOR JOURGENSEN
ime marches on to the tick-tock
T cadence of dozens of clocks
crowding the shelves and display floor in
Phillips' Clock Shop, where George C.
Phillips III labors with patience and love
surrounded by large and small timepieces.
With help from his wife, Marilyn, in
running the business and companionship
provided by the couple's pug, Bingo,
Phillips labors on timepieces of all kinds,
from an ornate Zappler clock the size of
a cigarette lighter to grandfather clocks
costing as much as a new car.
The Phillips sell and repair all manners
of timekeeping devices and extol the
virtues of watches and clocks as gifts and
keepsakes in an age when a quick glance at
a mobile device tells most people the time.
"We don't plan on retiring. We love
the clocks. It's relaxing listening to them
at night," said Marilyn Phillips.
George Phillips considered himself
mechanically-inclined even before he
married Marilyn and started learning
about clocks from his father-in-law. An
East Boston native, he attended Boston's
North Bennet Street School and worked
at the former Jordan Marsh department
store in Boston where he eventually
landed a job in the clock department.
"I opened my own little shop in 1974
in Winthrop," he said.
The Phillips moved to Swampscott to
enroll their three children in local schools
PHOTOS: SPENSER HASAK
and opened their Essex Street store in
1995. Their business is a mix of clock
sales and watch and clock repairs that has
survived changing consumer tastes.
Chelsea Clocks, the nautical-themed
creations that George Phillips said almost
every American president has received as
a gift, remain popular sales items.
Grandfather clocks (known in the
trade as hall or tall case clocks) are
enduring acquisitions that younger
customers are eyeing and buying in order
to balance or accent a hallway or main
room in a new house.
With their ornate gilding and 19
types of wood incorporated into their
construction, grandfather clocks get their
name from a song that referred to the
solemn timekeepers in a stanza.
Pocket watches may sound like
leftovers from the 19th century, but the