A German Clockmaker and His Work 
?fg§ 
GERMAN, FRENCH AND CHINESE CURIO CLOCKS 
means of internal adjustments that do not 
suffer at the hands of the thoughtless. 
Having once placed a clock where it should 
stand, he insists that it shall not be removed 
by any unskilled person. The English 
clocks, with their longer pendulum arc and 
less delicate adjustment, will keep good time 
with much less skilled care. 
Excellent as are the English and French 
clocks, the German clockmaker regards Amer¬ 
ican clocks as the best in the world for their 
cost. I 'hey are remarkably simple, they 
keep good time within reasonable limits, and 
they run for years without repairs. 
Furthermore, when they must be 
repaired the duty may be entrusted 
to any fairly intelligent clock- 
maker. They require no such 
skill and expense as the best 
French and English clocks to keep 
them in proper running order. 
It is the belief of the German 
clockmaker that the oldest Ameri¬ 
can tall clocks were not entirely of 
native make. The works, usually 
of brass, were, he thinks, imported 
from England. Later the Ameri¬ 
can clockmakers made wooden works for 
clocks tall and short, and made them so well 
that they are often in running order to this 
day. Doubtless wooden works were used 
in Europe long before, but they were rein¬ 
vented, so to speak, in this country, long 
after most of the European clockmakers 
came to use brass works. 
H is own fellow countrymen, says the Ger¬ 
man clockmaker, are not as good in his trade 
as are the English, American and French. 
Within the last twenty-five years, however, 
the German artisans have greatly improved 
in the quality of their workmanship. They 
are now making speciallv good regulators of 
the style known as “ banjo” clocks, a style in 
which the American clockmakers have long 
excelled. The German clockmakers, also, 
are traditionally fond of producing clocks 
that are essentially toys. The clockmaker 
has in his shop what is in effect a small mu¬ 
seum of his trade. Among his wares are a 
number of odd and elaborate German clocks. 
One has a little door above the dial plate 
which opens at each hour and shows the head of 
a pig opening its mouth and exhibiting a red 
tongue, and squeaking the hour. Another 
German clock in the collection has a bugler 
who sounds a call at each hour or whenever 
a certain spring is touched. Still another of 
these odd clocks, and the most elaborate of 
the collection, displavs a landscape under a 
large glass belljar. 
There are sea and 
mountains, a train of 
cars 
that 
moves 
rapidly 
JAPANESE CLOCKS 
44 
