Nicolae Simache Clock Museum

The Nicolae Simache Clock Museum is at 1 Strada Nicolae Simache in Ploiești and is part of the Prahova County Museum of History and Archaeology, run by Prahova County Council. It was founded in 1963 by Nicolae Simache (1905-1972), a historian who taught history at the Saints Peter and Paul secondary school in Ploiești from 1932 to 1969. Since 1971 the museum has occupied the house built in 1890 for the magistrate and politician Luca Elefterescu, a listed monument (LMI code PH-II-m-A-16296). The house largely keeps its original Romantic-style architecture and decoration, and the first owner's initials can still be seen in the ironwork of the entrance doors. The building was restored and reopened to the public on 20 May 2016. The collection of more than 4,000 pieces is displayed chronologically: sundials, hourglasses, and furniture, mantel, wall, pocket and travel clocks. The oldest pieces are two astronomical clocks of 1544 and 1562, made by Jakob Acustodia and by Jeremias Metzker of Augsburg, and a water clock was built by Charles Rayner in London in 1654. The oldest pocket watch, from 1652, is signed by Philip Jakob Bickelman of Linz. The displays also include eighteenth-century Baroque and Rococo longcase clocks, musical clocks and automata, music boxes, a gramophone and a portable gramophone (patefon). The museum also holds clocks and watches that belonged to public figures such as Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Mihail Kogălniceanu, Kings Carol I and Michael I, Tsar Alexander II, Nicolae Iorga, Nicolae Titulescu, Vasile Alecsandri and Theodor Aman. According to CIMEC it is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 17:00.