Kitchen timers

[spectre6000]

I've been passively on the lookout for a nice kitchen timer for a while, but nothing has ever popped up that really caught my interest. One of the German manufacturers (I forget which one off the top of my head) has a 50s design kitchen clock with a timer in the base. It's neat, good looking, but they're extremely expensive, and most of the ones I can find are new and quartz (quartz almost always means not interesting). Is anyone aware of any good quality, interesting, well designed kitchen timers? I'm mostly just interested in timing my coffee/tea steeping, cooking tasks, etc., but if it's not worth the effort to track down, I'll just keep using the microwave/oven timers. I figure the last century must have produced SOMETHING that will scratch my itch for such a ubiquitous task.

[nickelsilver]

I haven't seen any modern mechanical timers that were very good. True, there are some interesting designs (my father in law is addicted to buying designer kitchen accessories), but most parts are plastic and "repairable" isn't part of the philosophy.

 

But for timers more than say 30 years old, while often made to the Timex philosophy of quality, are usually quite repairable and quite handsome. I suggest just scanning Ebay as well as local flea markets, antique, and knick-knack shops until you find something you like. You'll probably end up with two or three!

[spectre6000]

Something old is pretty much assumed at this point. I've been scanning, but there's a larger than usual mountain of trash to wade through to find anything that even shows up on radar, let along worthy of pursuit. I figured there must be something that's popped up like that Junghans clock (I remembered while typing this time) some time in the past that was worthy of taking a look.

[Klassiker]

What about this? 25 EUR shipping to USA.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/165482345479?hash=item2687843407:g:lnAAAOSwABRiUwcr

I was lucky enough to find one just like this in the cellar at my in-laws' house: https://www.ebay.de/itm/175222363127?hash=item28cc1113f7:g:j6IAAOSwUL9iRcQb

The way the balance is suspended (on a central wire, between magnets) is really clever.

[spectre6000]

That's the one I was thinking. Wife is on board. Gotta find a good one.

We ended up getting one of these:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08K9GFDMP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's not mechanical, but it's for daughter's therapy, looks nice, and gets the job done for now. Since it's technically a medical device, I don't think it precludes a proper clock in the near future. I'm in the process of buying and importing a sports car from abroad, and managed to break my laptop screen resulting in either a repair or a new computer TBD, so I'm a bit tapped on my major (and minor) fun purchases for the near term.

Definitely still on the lookout for this though, so keep 'em coming!