Mystery box

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Apologies for the break in our programming. 

Now back to our story.

What's in the box? 

It's a lovely thing all by itself. A touch more blue than this picture does justice. Almost a Tiffany blue but definitely with some green in it.


I'd be happy with the box alone but...

A preamble:

Most weekends I take a look at the local Craigslist entries for garage sales and often do a search for clocks. Last weekend there was a sale posted with photos that had several clocks visible. Possibly some interesting ones. No mention of clocks in the posting, just saw a few of them in one of the posted photos. 

Here's from the listing:


More than a half dozen clocks in this photo alone.

Got there early and all of these (and several more) were still there. Easily more than a dozen clocks. Most were not desirable by your correspondent. There was a nice Seth Thomas tambour but I already own a finer example of the form. That tambour is in the photo above, flush to the upper right. A couple of decent American mantle clocks but nothing that really rang my bell.

However there was that lovely aqua box up on the table. And what was inside it! 

A Schatz. 

I knew the model immediately as I've become a bit of a fiend for mid-century Schatz torsion clocks. I already own a "standard" 49 anniversary style, a "Bermuda"  miniature and a 1,000 Day. They're notoriously finicky to adjust but famous for being well built.

Behold the "Barock" model which constitutes a standard 53 miniature stuffed in a case with matching shelf for display. They made them for only a few years.


It is in it's original box with the original matching shelf and mounting bracket!

Manufactured August 1956. 


Broken suspension spring but I can easily replace that and all the essential bits seem to be there. Fork, upper and lower blocks, the pendulum. Even the suspension guard (often missing). No key but that's an easy replacement. It looks to be in very good condition. 


The guy wanted $20. 

Sold American!

In our next installment... how I got it running that same day. 

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