Antique and Vintage Clocks

When my wife’s parents sold their home in a small town in Nova Scotia in 1996, they passed on a wall clock, which had been given to my father-in-law by a patient and had hung on the wall in the main hallway of their home, to his son, my wife’s brother. It has been in storage ever since then.

I hadn’t seen the clock in nearly 30 years though I have vivid memories. In the 1980s and 1990s, my wife and I would bring the kids to visit their grandparents on weekends. The clock would resonate throughout the house. It was unforgettable, by its loud ticking and the four-hammer strike marking the hour and half-hour.

Made by Mauthe, it is a 1930s-style German box clock, dark in color, reminiscent of one in my own collection. In fact, except for minor details on the case, it’s almost identical to mine.

My father-in-law loved the clock and had it for years, winding it without fail once a week. When it stopped, he would have someone local service it for him. He cherished it deeply, though I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps, as a doctor, he valued it as a thank-you gift from one of his patients, or maybe he simply had a passion for clocks.

Sadly, my father-in-law passed away in 2012, and my mother-in-law passed away this year. While settling the estate, my wife and her brother started communicating on a deeper level, and the subject of the clock came up. Would I fix it?

The clock has now been passed to me for repair. I picked it up in mid-June, and my first impression was that the case was in excellent shape for its age. While the case has minor nicks and scratches that can be easily addressed, the dial is rough. Otherwise, the movement appears intact with no missing or damaged parts.

Overall, I believe the clock is definitely worth restoring. Once I evaluate the clock further I can determine what needs to be done, make any necessary repairs to the movement, and the case, test the movement, and return it to my wife’s brother. To have it displayed prominently on a wall and running again would be a testament to my father-in-law’s memory.

Although I have other projects on the go and cannot tackle this project until the fall, I am pretty excited about working on this clock. It is a perfect candidate for restoration but more importantly, it has great sentimental value.

In future posts, I will describe a step-by-step process of revitalizing the case and another on servicing the movement.