In their time, wall-mounted dinner chimes were marketed as a luxury item.  They were used in railroad passenger cars and steamships to announce mealtimes.  Large homes with servant staffs would have their servants announce meals with the chimes.  They became status symbols, and were very popular wedding gifts sold through higher-end retail stores (initially at Marshall Fields and Carson Pirie Scott in Chicago, eventually spreading out to the east coast at such stores as Henry Burksons and T. Eaton & Co.).   

One of the most famous dinner chimes was the famous NBC 3-note gong originally used by WNBC radio to introduce the news at the hour.  It was, regrettably, made by J.C. Deagan, a competitor of the Kohler-Liebich Liberty Chime Company.

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