formatting - How to fix Ticks in Gauges?

Ticks is an option for Gauges. I fail, however, to apply custom Ticks to Gauges. For instance, compare these two:

 {ThermometerGauge[50, {0, 100}, Ticks -> Automatic], 
 ThermometerGauge[50, {0, 100}, Ticks -> {0, 50, 100}]}

What you see is this:

No difference!

I also tried with the Horizontal- and VerticalGauge with the same success.

Do you know a workaround?

EDIT 11.07.13: I have seen the answers to my question. They all are good and fascinating, and in another case I will certainly use them. They do not answer my question though. For this reason I would like to give some more explanation of what I am really after. I will give it within an example of a different problem, where it is easy to obtain such a result.

So let us consider two simple plots. First is this

Plot[x, {x, -0.3, 0.3}, ImageSize -> 250]

second is this:

 Plot[x, {x, -0.3, 0.3}, Ticks -> {{0, 3/16, 1/4}, Automatic}, 
 ImageSize -> 250]

Here you can see it. The y axis in both plots is automatic - do not look at it. The x axis of the first plot is automatic for comparison, while the x axis of the second plot is what I am after. I would like to achieve the same on the ThermometerGauge, if possible by easy means. The easy means are here important, since looking at programs below I feel that it is easier to draw such a Gauge from scratch. For example, like this:

  thermo[x_] := Show[{

   Graphics3D[{Text[Style["-0.3", 12], {-0.15, 0, -0.3}], 
     Text[Style["0", 12], {-0.15, 0, 0}],
     Text[Style["3/16", 12], {0.14, 0, 3/16}] , 
     Text[Style["1/4", 12], {0.15, 0, 0.25}] , 
     Text[Style["0.3", 12], {-0.13, 0, 0.3}]}, 
    ViewPoint -> {0, -1.5, 0}, Boxed -> False, 
    ImageSize -> {120, 300}],
   Graphics3D[{LightBlue, Specularity[White, 20], Opacity[0.5], 
     Sphere[{0, 0, -0.4}, 0.11]}],
   Graphics3D[{Red, Specularity[White, 20], 

     Sphere[{0, 0, -0.4}, 0.1]}],
   Graphics3D[{LightBlue, Opacity[0.5], 
     Tube[{{0, 0, -0.4}, {0, 0, 0.35}}, 0.05]}],
   Graphics3D[{Red, Specularity[White, 20], 
     Cylinder[{{0, 0, -0.45}, {0, 0, x}}, 0.04]}],

   Graphics3D[{Thickness[0.015], 
     Line[{{-0.07, 0, #}, {-0.09, 0, #}}] & /@ 
      Table[i, {i, -0.3, 0.3, 0.1}]}],
   Graphics3D[{Red, Thickness[0.015], 

     Arrow[{{0.09, 0, 3/16}, {0.03, 0, 3/16}}], 
     Arrow[{{0.09, 0, 0.25}, {0.03, 0, 0.25}}]}]
   }]

Try it:

Manipulate[
 thermo[x], {{x, 0}, -0.3, 0.3}]

It looks as shown here: