From Grand Illusions.

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Most of Tim’s toy collection is tucked away in suitcases. However in this video Tim shows some of the toys that live on his mantelpiece, and which he sees and uses every day.

First up, a very unusual clock. A central wheel that shows the hours, and a worm drive that powers the display of minutes. And a small silver paddle that rotates – just to show that the clock is actually running!

Then a clock that Tim got from the Exploratory in San Francisco. There is no display, but it chimes every hour. However if you touch the top and bottom metal sections at the same time, the clock will chime the hour, then with a higher note it will chime to indicate sections of 10 minutes (so three chimes means 30 minutes) and then finally it will chime the number of minutes. So four chimes, followed by two chimes, followed by six chimes means twenty six minutes past four.

Some old fashioned chiming clocks have a little string at the side which if you pull it will cause them to chime that last hour again – handy before the days of electricity. So if it chimed 3 o’clock in the morning and you were only half awake, you could pull the string and it would chime 3 again. It was only an indication, since even if it was 5 minutes to 4, it would still chime 3!

Tim has a little calendar, which he describes as ‘hardcore analogue’. It is a sliding block puzzle, so at the beginning of each month you have a puzzle to solve as you rearrange the display so that the dates match the correct day of the week.

Some intriguing wooden toys from Germany. Some mushrooms (or toadstools?) which have been turned on a lathe and still have some of the original bark around the edge, and a small house where the roof is the bark from the original branch it was made from.

Finally an Egyptian hollow face illusion. As the camera moves from side to side, the face seems to swivel to follow you, but when you look closely you can see that the face actually moves through twice the angle that the camera moves. All an illusion of course, a ‘grand illusion’ !!