Incredible Nixie Tube Clock Design

Tired of looking at the same old analogue clock face? Does digital do nothing for you? Then you need a tubular timepiece. And roughly £19,000.

The stunning contraption you see before you is the Nixie Machine - part sculpture, part clock. Designed by German artist Frank Buchwald (owner of the most masculine name we've ever encountered), the over-engineered clock uses six Nixie tubes; an old electrical component that displays numbers using mesh anodes, neon gas and cold cathodes.

Commissioned by Mechanical Art Devices Gallery, the Nixie tubes used by Buchwald are "old new stock" - made in the 1960s, the ancient time-tellers have been stored for decades in a sealed Bulgarian army depot. It's not all old tech though - the time is can be set automatically via a GPS receiver. 

Over 350 pieces goes into one Nixie Machine, which is limited to a run of just 12 complete clocks - there aren't enough Nixie tubes to go around.

Good luck finding a replacement should one of the tubes blow. You can find out more about the Nixie Machine here.

[Via: Acquire]