Perhaps a rolling ball clock has less drift than a pendulum clock. The big problem with clocks was on ships, and I don’t expect the rolling ball clock would be useful in that environment.

Dodd also tracked down the original patent covering the rolling ball clock apparatus, U.S. Patent No. 4077198 which was issued to inventor Harley Mayenschein in March 1978 and contains diagrams ...

The collection still has the one piece that he made, Mr. Kobayashi said: a rolling ball clock. Image. A hallway lined with long case clocks, also known as grandfather (or grandmother) clocks.