Travelling Through Time!

One subject I know very little about is clocks and timepieces but being a bit of a 'dabbler' the fact that I have no expertise in this field hasn't stopped me from making a few purchases over the years. Here are a few of the little alarm clocks that have passed through my life and my Etsy shop.

This lovely vintage wall clock is surprisingly still with me but I'm enjoying having it on display in my office while it waits for a new owner.

Click on photo to see listing

One clock that we bought to keep for ourselves is this pretty little French mantle clock.  It's made from marble and has the most delightful little chime.  It can be a temperamental from time to time but if we remember to keep it wound up it's fine.  

My husband, Spike, is half Swiss and has very fond childhood memories of spending his holidays in the home of his Uncles in the mountains of Switzerland and ever since then he has nursed the dream of one day being the proud owner of a cuckoo clock.  

This dream of his is something that I have tried to avoid for many years because cuckoo clocks are really not my truc and I am very particular about what items make it over the threshold of our home.

However, a while back at a brocante market I foolishly pointed one out to Spike that I had spied tucked away in a box behind the stall.  When his face lit up I could see immediately that it was love at first sight and I was in trouble.  I grilled the seller in the hope that he would crack and tell me that it wasn't working.  A trick we employ with smaller clocks is to shake them to see if they begin to tick but obviously the mechanism is different and you can't go grabbing a large cuckoo clock and start shaking it up and down anyway (although at one point I was sorely tempted!).  

The next straw that I frantically grasped at was that it would be priced way out of our reach but being the end of the day I think the old guy was glad to get rid of it.  He offered the clock at such an annoyingly low price we couldn't say no and I suppose there's not much call for cuckoo clocks in the South West of France (I also personally believe that the vendor was a cruel, cruel, vindictive man because I made it perfectly clear that I wasn't keen!).

I immediately made Spike agree, as a condition of purchase, that it would live in his workshop (I was trying to sell the man-cave thing) and that's where it is at the moment (although worryingly this space will one day be our kitchen so I'm not out of the woods, or should that be Black Forest, yet!). Thankfully after all the trauma the clock does actually work and the little cuckoo can be heard reverberating around the house from the basement so we always know what time it is wherever we are (even in the wee small hours... guests beware!).

All this being said I have over time rather begrudgingly grown quite fond of it (at least it's an old and relatively tasteful example of a cuckoo clock - I can't believe I just said that!).

Moving swiftly on... here's our latest acquisition to join the noisy gang of clocks we seem to be amassing.

It's a Napoléon III 'Oeil de Boeuf' clock.  OK, I know it's a funny looking thing but when we saw it a couple of weeks ago we just loved the old lump and it has a really soft mellow tone when it chimes (please try to ignore the plasterboard backdrop!).

My ambition one day is to own a long case clock but I would go back to England to buy one because I find the French ones a bit odd looking compared to their British counterparts (or is it just me?).

    

French

English

I would particularly like one with a sun/moon dial in a honey-coloured burr walnut case but that's one ambition really is going to take some time!