Escapement

Look closely Sinbad. All will be revealed. The hands and dial came off easily. The movement quickly gave up its secret. That is the Seikosha logo. Established in 1892 as the clock making arm of K. Hattori & Co. That is one of, if not the, earliest trademark stamps of the company that would become Seiko. Oh and this on the upper left of the front plate: Kanji? My careful detective work unearthed clues that the Pony Express folks called this model the B19. It was tough to decipher but the clues are there.     What do you think of that wood Dr. Johnson? 1910? Me neither. That said the movement is fairly clean and looks like it was bushed as part of a service but those may be original? It has another ugly solder job too. I wonder if it was roughly serviced sometime in the last 40 years or just put in service this way as Sy the Pony Express were cranking these out. The front glass was redone/done poorly. Perhaps the original was br...

On many a Saturday me and the fam will lark out to take in some estate sales and yard sales. We got wind of an early one and this last Saturday we head out over the Grade to an estate sale in Corral de Tierra. The house it tucked away in a nice neighborhood.  The place is packed. Shoppers climbing all over the place. I start looking for clocks. I find some. First there’s this guy. A Gilbert mantel. I’m guessing early 20th century. Also guessing that’s a pretty good price. It’s in immaculate condition. That's faux marble. Paper laminate on wood. Still the face is so clean. Then there’s this guy. Handsome. I’m guessing 30’s. No obvious maker. I don’t know about the price. Then there’s this, literally lying on the floor: Smallish. The wood is lovely. It does look old but’s really clean. Seems almost untouched. And what an interesting label on the back. Who’s this Simon Whittner guy? What does this have to do wi...

We saw the backplate... now here's the front plate It's pretty clean overall except for that ugly, soldered "Rathbun" (hey I study!) bushing on the upper left. But it does appear to be doing it's job fine and there's a saying: if it ain't broke... But this does bring up an interesting story I read on the NAWCC message board  where a clockmaker  replied to a request for help and shared the following: " I have in the past repaired many botched repairs of many clock "shade tree" mechanic's soldering. I also heard stories that back in the 1900s in the rural area there were traveling "shade tree" clock repair people equipped with a soldering iron, brass material, hand drill and dipping in kerosene. They would spend a few days in small towns repairing clocks for farmers." Shady business? Removing the plate: Definitely more gizmos to learn about on this one Disassembled This clock also uses a ...

Back in April neighbor Rick Simms brought me over to see Marge, a lifelong resident of Carmel Valley. Marge had been working as a caretaker for an elderly woman who recently passed away. The woman left Marge the house and its contents. Rick said there were "some clocks" in the house and arranged for Marge to show them. The house was not visitor friendly. An old bungalow that had clearly gone bad decades ago. The place was rancid with decay. Almost to the point of driving me out but your correspondent persevered. The assortment of life detritus was abundant. There were several clocks. This tall case (Grandfather) one was a Ridgeway. Probably no more than 40 years old. And had seen better days. Too new. Then there was what seemed like a home-brew of a custom case and a cheap movement. This was an odd clock.    There were two Korean made clocks. Pass. Then there was this... A Seth Thomas Tambour style mantle clock. With this charming pendulum fob....

I'll need to do some research.

July to be more precise. There are no other company marks on the thing but some nice bits of history on the back. Serviced the month before I was born! With the initials J. BH And what is the number next to it along the side?  040943F... Hmmm... Also signed further down by(?) James Bryant but in a script different than that of the service date. Yet the initials above... Hmmm...