There are some days when I think I might be a bit player in Donalds Trumps virtual reality, and others where I am convinced I am. This is one of these days. Firstly. Increasingly we are getting work from Hong Kong for some reason. The last chap was a broker who wanted his office clock fixed. It was an electric ships bulkhead clock he had aquired cheaply because he had bought it early on and he just liked it. He brought the clock over and I had a look and quoted about £700 for the work which was not extensive, but very specialist as the clock was a 1967 transistor based unit. It used solenoids and gearing as well as pressure systems for barometrics and I think even time zones. At any rate it was impressive and I suspected it might be a “blue glow” clock. These are the clocks I get in which you just sort of get this psychic feeling that you are holding a bloody fortune. The owners are often surpised when I recognise the value on something people would not normally specifically differenciate on. Its about the precision of the engineering in relation to the age which always had a bleeding edge. So you get clocks with double fusees back to the Georgian period at a time when most fusees today are victorian. The georgian ones have opulence. They just reek of grandure, often in a contained or symetrical way and with really good curves worked into square panels. Engraving or incredible casting. With a double fusee running a balance wheel. It really is impressive. Anyway.
The customer got a phone call from us about his clock, the one with the ships clock I mean, it went “we have good and bad news. The good news is the clock owes us £700 so pony up sunshine (I think what I said was “the bill is £700 as quoted”), and the good news is your clock turns out to be incredibly rare. Without the back plate, which is missing, its still worth £13,000. It would have been 15k or more if you had the back plate”. His reply was “I have the back plate in my office drawer. Thank you for your service, I will pay you immediately”. And he was a nice chap as well. You just cant make it up. How does that happen to a man who probably owns a nice boat and not a poor granny. God has a sense of humour darker than we imagine I think.
Which brings me to acts of god. Not normally associated with clocks, but the picture at the start of this article shows what an act of god, namely a landslide somewhere near Hong Kong, does to a clock. It ducks it. Completely. And we, at Braintree Clock Repairs, just north of Asgard, have been asked to ressurect it. Literrally. This will be an unatural re-animation. God literally wanted this clock dead. But it wasn’t my god so I can do what I want. It might actually come down to compromise. You should see the face. I had a picture I will post when we have assessed this or done it.
What next? Something involving….whattt…hmmmmm….probably something rediculous. Almost certainly.
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