Antique and Vintage Clocks

The other day I decided to explore my humble beginnings and realized that 240 posts ago was post number one. Three years ago I had recently retired and I decided to look into blogging, something I always wanted to do. I never considered myself a great writer. I do not have that natural flair that some people seem to have for writing but I wanted to give it a try. I had some thoughts and ideas that I wanted to communicate with an audience that was looking for something a little different.

I attended a WordPress session at my local college and was very impressed with how easy it was to set up a blogging site. Anyone can do it said the facilitator and I wasted no time getting started. WordPress impressed me as a very intuitive package then and after 3 years I am still impressed with the power of the product.

This year as some of you know I decided to buy a domain name which I think is a great name and says everything it needs to,  antiquevintageclock.com and a 1-year automatically renewable subscription. I won’t go into the additional benefits of the new package suffice to say the time was right for a change. The result has been a slight uptick in hits and exposure to more powerful options within WordPress.

Just a note about hits. In the first week or so of my new domain name my hits dropped dramatically, something to do with Google’s ranking analytics and not unusual for a brand new domain name. Of course, after I hit the migrate button and saw my hits drop I found an article that spoke directly to making preparations beforehand to avoid low hits after migration but too late for me. It would have been nice for a WordPress warning box to pop that would have read, “Oh, before you do that you may want to read this”

So, here is what I said three years ago. It was a short article and I remember at the time what a real struggle it was to put those first few words together.

I am no more than a clock collector and tinkerer. I am not a trained horologist nor do I have a great talent for clock repair or even getting a simple clock back to working order, but I find the world of horology to be quite fascinating.

It is a relatively new hobby for me which began with the purchase of a Daniel Dakota 2-train wall clock about 3 years ago.

Now I know what you are thinking. Why start with a Chinese made clock which most would consider inferior to almost any other clock in the world. Well, it was pretty cheap and it piqued my interest in collecting. From there I moved on to a Ridgeway grandfather clock and to my current collection of Mauthe, Seth Thomas, Hermle, Forestville, Sessions, Smiths Enfield, Muller and Pequegnat clocks.

I intend to profile my clocks both old and newly acquired on this blog and describe my attempts to repair and maintain my modest collection. I might even solicit a little help from my fellow clock enthusiasts.

Some of the nicer things about clock collecting are that is a great conversation starter and it allows me to combine my other passions, photography and traveling. Finding good clocks means traveling around the province of Nova Scotia, meeting interesting people along the way and is some cases getting fabulous deals. All the photos on this site are my own. I will try to capture the beauty of these old mechanical clocks and talk about the pedigree if I can learn anything about the history of any of these clocks..

Stay tuned. It is all a learning experience and as I bravely go further into the hobby I will be able to share my many experiences.

Well, I am still doing what I set out to do, profile my modest collection and pass on the clock repair techniques I have learned to the novice and intermediate clock repairer. Do I know more than I knew then? Sure, isn’t that what learning is all about? I am still tuned in and I hope you are too.