This came in for service. Niiiiice clock. Really good black forest carving, early brass thick guage components lyre movement.
We get a lot of wooden cage antique early cuckoo clocks in – mainly german. Picture clocks, tabletops and many other sub genres. This one was brought in because it kept stopping. Various service jobs sorted that out – there wasn’t a serious problem.
What is particularly impressive here is the carving. This is one of three clocks I will particularly remember. The first was a triple bellow quarter chimer (cuckoo) with vine leaves carved in breathtaking artistic style. More like sculpture. Then there was one with an imposing caricature outsized eagle and Jules Verne level mechanical engineering with a 4 track 2000 note music box. That was almost certainly an exhibition type of clock in celebration of the 1874 victory of Germany in Europe (Versailles?). It was clearly a showpiece for the combined strengths they could demonstrate in art and technology. It’s the sort of clock a military ego would have liked which brought a slightly dark feeling that quite frankly enhanced it. It was so massive it could of hung in a hunting chalet. An eagles nest perhaps!.
Clock repair is like this. All clocks have a story and a history. We get clocks in from the odd celebrity, clocks from RAF installations and equipment, clocks from famous makers, granny’s alarm clock, grandads clock from his 1907 steam car, and loads of every day 20th century clocks. Quite frankly I’m just waiting for Burnham or Trumps clock to turn up. I doubt Burnham can tell the time so I’ll just do nothing and tell him everything’s fine. He will understand the philosophy. Trump….we do actually gold plate stuff, but for him I will make a completely gold clock. Everything solid gold except the spring. He will love it. With the softness of gold the thing will need a major service every 5 days or so. Job for life. Anyway I digress…
The clock pictured is the third clock I will definitely remember. It’s an absolutely classic hunting chalet game clock in its format, but the wood colour is astonishing. The animals look like they were modelled rather than created artistically, although the traditional bezier curves in the plant elements is still discernable. It’s also notable that it hasn’t lost its horn mouthpiece – they always come off and get lost normally because it’s actually a carved component pegged in as opposed to having to carve the whole horn from a larger disk size. Where there is art there is always a commercial aspect to production.
The guy who owns it said he will miss it massively while in the workshop. I expressed the job in 4 days because I fell in love with it on sight and wanted to minimise the pain of handing my precious back. Then again, my clocks better for different reasons and you can only have one mistress. Sort of.
Recent Comments