vintage Turret CLOCKS​

We have always focused on adding equipment or machinery that has significantly changed the world.  We​ found a great example in 2022 when we acquired and brought "back to life" a very early tower or turret clock mechanism.  Based on our extensive research, we believe the mechanism was constructed some 600 years ago, in the 15th or 16th Century; during that period, clocks such as this were most often used in a church or other public center and were about the only means individuals in a city or community had to keep track of the time.  When we acquired the clock, the seller told us that the mechanism was very rare, and to that point, we have literally spent hundreds of hours searching museums and the like and found only one other clock like ours.  We found and acquired the clock in Costa Rica, where it had reportedly moved from Germany following World War II.  It was obvious that it had not been in use for many decades and possibly centuries, and was in very rough shape missing numerous essential parts and components.  Making it fully operational involved reworking many damaged parts and fabricating new parts, including the various chime mechanism components, the time and chime counterweights, all the various pendulum components, the clock face and the hand, and the display stand to showcase the mechanism.  The longer we have it we become ever more amazed by the quality of the workmanship that must have been involved given the period in which the mechanism was built.  

The addition of the old clock has proven extremely rewarding and has garnered great interest among our visitors and others who follow us via the website and our newsletters.  Given the very positive reception the clock has received, we have since acquired two additional tower clocks and an old street clock.  Our second clock project was restoring a mechanism manufactured in St. Louis by the A.E Pollhans Clock Company in the later half of the 1800s.  This clock still had its original face or dial, which is just one of the reasons it was an unusual find.  Next was our recently completed restoration of a Brown Street Clock manufactured early in the Twentieth Century.  As restored, the clock is entirely original, except for an auto-winding mechanism we installed to alleviate the necessity to frequently wind the clock manually.  We also added a glass viewing window on one side of the clock base that allows visitors to see the movement and the auto-winding components function.

Our current project involves a Seth Thomas "quarter strike" clock from the early 1900s, which chimes both on the hour and on the quarters of each hour.  Building a display for this clock with the three chime bells is proving to be quite mechanically complex and challenging.  While the project is still a work in process, we want to share with you the last photo in the photo string below which shows the project in its current state.