What's Been Going On - 2

On top of the garden project another opportunity arose. Over the last 3-4 years we have bought a few antique clocks (yes, real antiques) from a gentleman up in Loveland. He is in his 80s now and his wife is making him clean out his "man-cave" (a stand alone steel building about 30'x60'. He is a serious collector of stuff and as a fairly famous auctioneer had plenty of opportunities to acquire seriously nice stuff) so she wouldn't have to.

He contacted us and told us he was going to make us a great deal on clocks (and he has a lot). He had been putting some aside just for us. Well, a normal deal is he want's $1000 for a clock but he will give it to us for $950. Now I have managed to score a few deals from him over the years just because I have a good eye and he doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. I also know that I have over payed for a couple but they were worth it to me because they filled gaps in our collection.

So we traveled north with some serious skepticism of what the deal would be. Well it turned out to be an actual deal this time and we picked up 16 clocks including a nice grandmother clock (which is just an overall smaller version of a grandfather clock) for a seriously good price, This seriously impacted our capacity to display clocks.

The decision was made to convert a room that we had used for pottery and make it into the Clock Room. That entailed selling off the two pottery wheels (quickly done actually), cleaning the walls (clay dust) and generally prepping the room for painting. We basically did about a wall and a half at time so about three days to paint the room. Mostly because we decided to move furniture around rather than empty it. Since I was the only painter at this point it just took a little longer than it would have normally. 

With the room empty clocks were hung and evaluated for both physical and mechanical condition. One of the objectives is to have a designated room where clocks get fixed. I have taken a number of courses on the fixing of mechanical clocks but I don't really have a good place to start experimenting on taking them apart and putting them back together. We now have a room to fix clocks in and wall space for two more hanging clocks! I still need to figure out how to display the mantlepiece style clocks though, a project for the future.

I think this is the oldest clock in the group. Its labeled "Ansonia Brass & Copper Company" and dates back to a period from 1869 to 1877. This is a weight driven shelf clock and stands about 2' tall and it feels like it weighs about 30#s. 

Part of the label is damaged. But that first word is Patent and in the second line the first word is Ansonia. In December of 1877 it is re-organized as the Ansonia Clock Company.

I have no idea who made this clock at this point. I can't see any markers on the mechanism, other than a four digit code, but its a beauty. There may be something underneath though, I forgot to check.

We saw a guy about a dog (clock)

Well, okay, maybe not a dog (we still have three) but we did see a guy about some clocks. We ran up to

Loveland to see George and his brother Bob about a clock. George is a well known auctioneer and has amassed quite the personal collection of "stuff" some pretty amazing stuff. In the end we walked out with 8 clocks and a stained glass lamp (a real one not a reproduction, not a Tiffany though).

I haven't delved into the specifics on this one yet but it is an Ansonia Calendar Regulator wall clock.

This is a porcelain Gilbert clock, the "Romance" model. Needs a new pendulum and the metal back plat is missing, that might be tough to come up with but I'll try. The mechanism looks to have been serviced within the last 20 years and at first glance (without taking it apart) the work looks pretty good.

Another porcelain clock. I think this is a Gilbert but I'm not sure yet. I haven't found any identifying markings at this point.

This is a New Haven "Liffey" clock circa 1882. It has an Elbe pendulum which allows fine adjustment to just how fast or slow the clock runs. Someone applied a finish to it at some point or it has a lot of was build up so there is definitely a lot of restoration work to come on the case.

An Ingraham clock, the case needs a little love and I haven't looked at the inside yet. I think the pendulum is missing.

This is a neat find, although not the best example, of an advertising wall clock. Its by Baird and I doubt that I'll be able to find out much about it. I'm not sure it runs but we will find out. 

This is definitely a Gilbert! Don't know which model yet but looking forward to the research.

The one clock not picture is an Ansonia "Bee" which is a small 3" one day clock (you have to wind it everyday). Not sure of the date of manufacture it was patented in 1878 but they made these up through the 1930s. It also came with the shipping tin (ours is blue) which is in pretty good shape, better than a lot of the ones I have seen. The little clock is in fabulous shape, a few scratches on the back and that's about it. Bright and shiny!

I'll have to get a picture of the stained glass lamp but its very pretty and very, very heavy.