Daniel Jones is an American collector and researcher specializing in the history of mechanical chess clocks and historic chess equipment. He is the founder of 64 Relics, a project devoted to documenting, preserving, and explaining the physical artifacts that accompanied the development of competitive chess.
What began as an interest in individual chess clocks gradually developed into an attempt to understand the entire history of chess timekeeping: who manufactured the clocks, where they were made, how their designs evolved, which models were used in tournament play, and how different national traditions influenced one another.
Today, Daniel’s collection contains examples from numerous countries and manufacturers, ranging from familiar twentieth-century production clocks to scarce nineteenth- and early twentieth-century pieces. Rather than concentrating only on famous or especially valuable objects, the collection is intended to build a broad taxonomy of mechanical chess clocks—including manufacturers, designs, movements, regional variants, and transitional forms that might otherwise receive little attention.
The 64 Relics Project
64 Relics was created to make this research available beyond the collection itself.
Mechanical chess clocks occupy an unusual position in chess history. They appear constantly in tournament photographs and contemporary accounts, yet the clocks themselves have historically received far less scholarly attention than the players, games, tournaments, boards, and pieces surrounding them.
In many cases, even basic questions can be surprisingly difficult to answer. A clock may have been sold under one company's name while containing a movement made by another manufacturer. Models changed subtly over time. Export versions differed from domestic versions. Companies disappeared, merged, or changed ownership. Surviving advertisements can contradict modern collector terminology, while tournament photographs sometimes provide evidence unavailable anywhere else.
64 Relics attempts to bring those fragments together.
The project combines surviving artifacts with period advertisements, catalogs, patents, tournament photographs, company records, contemporary journalism, collector research, and other historical sources. Where the evidence permits a firm conclusion, the site tries to provide one. Where the surviving record remains incomplete, uncertainty is identified rather than hidden.
The goal is not merely to display old clocks. It is to reconstruct the history behind them.
Chronocaissology
Daniel coined Chronocaissology as a term for the systematic study of chess clocks and chess timekeeping, including their history, invention, manufacture, mechanisms, design, makers, provenance, use in competition, and cultural significance.
The field sits at the intersection of chess history, horology, industrial history, technological history, commerce, and material culture. Its subject is not limited to the clocks themselves, but includes the people and companies that made them, the tournaments in which they were used, the national traditions that shaped their development, and the surviving evidence through which that history can be reconstructed.
Daniel’s long-term goal is to establish Chronocaissology as a distinct and recognizable field of study through systematic research, 64 Relics, publications, presentations, and a foundational history of chess clocks. The objective is for Chronocaissology to become part of the vocabulary of chess-clock research—so that those searching for the history of chess timekeeping encounter not merely scattered information about individual clocks, but a defined framework for studying the subject as a whole.
Collecting Philosophy
Daniel approaches chess clocks somewhat differently from many forms of collecting.
The objective is not simply to acquire the rarest, most expensive, or most visually impressive examples. Instead, the long-term collection is intended to document the development of chess clocks as comprehensively as practical.
That means preserving ordinary production models alongside exceptional rarities. A comparatively inexpensive clock can be historically important if it represents a manufacturer, mechanism, national tradition, or stage of development that would otherwise be missing from the story.
Restoration follows a similarly conservative philosophy. Where possible, clocks are preserved in their surviving historical condition. Repairs are primarily intended to stabilize an artifact, restore mechanical function, or address serious structural damage rather than erase the evidence of age.
A century-old chess clock should still look like an object that has lived through a century.
Research and Historical Documentation
A major focus of Daniel’s research is identifying chess clocks visible in historical tournament photographs.
These photographs can establish that a particular manufacturer or design was in use at a specific tournament and date, sometimes years before surviving catalogs or advertisements mention the model. Taken collectively, such images can reveal how chess-clock technology spread between countries and when one style began to replace another.
The broader research behind 64 Relics extends from the earliest days of tournament timekeeping through the mechanical clock's eventual displacement by electronic and digital systems.
The project also documents the companies and individuals responsible for producing these devices—from major clock manufacturers to small firms whose contribution to chess history survives in only a handful of artifacts.
Sharing the Collection
Daniel regularly shares his research and collection with other collectors, historians, horologists, and chess enthusiasts.
His work includes presentations on the history of chess clocks as well as continuing research intended for publication and future expansion of the 64 Relics archive.
Daniel is also open to making clocks and other chess artifacts from his collection available for use in movies, television series, documentaries, and other productions where historically appropriate chess equipment is needed. Productions interested in borrowing, referencing, or consulting on period-appropriate artifacts are welcome to get in touch.
64 Relics is intended to remain an evolving resource. New clocks are discovered. Previously unidentified manufacturers are documented. Better photographs surface. Old assumptions are overturned by new evidence.
Accordingly, pages on this site may be revised as the historical record improves.
Corrections, additional documentation, photographs, and information about previously unknown chess clocks are always welcome.
Contact
For questions, historical information, corrections, research collaboration, or information concerning unusual chess clocks:
Email: dan@64relics.com
Daniel also produces video content about chess clocks, individual artifacts, manufacturers, and related collecting topics on the 64 Relics YouTube channel:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@64Relics
64 Relics exists for a simple reason: these objects are part of chess history, and their stories deserve to survive with them.