Inside the Rare Art of Restoring Mechanical Antiques

Brittany Nicole Cox is one of the only antiquarian horologists in the world. She's basically a mechanic—a mechanic from the 17th century. Cox fixes old machines with watch or clock mechanisms inside them for a living. Often, these machines are missing parts that frequently no longer exist, so Cox fashions them herself. To visit her workshop is to see what the future looked like centuries ago, and while Cox's trade is laborious, time-consuming and incredibly intricate, she is preserving a magical part of humanity's past.