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Identification please.


Blacklab

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This has just been passed to me for restoration:

20160522_232218r.jpg

Quite acceptable on the outside, strikes but does not run, pendulum missing (may turn up soon), movement very dirty & not signed:

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Shows serial number 169240 with 18 above on the back plate, 20 on the front plate. Apart from the grime everything seems to be in good order. Any information about the movement (age, maker etc.) would be gratefully received. Also pendulum info would be useful (if the original turns out to have disappeared for good).

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Something tells me this is German, I don't know it's just a gut felling. If it isn't German then it would be English.

The case is an architectural form with what looks like a silvered dial with roman numerals with spade style blued hands and what looks to be a mahogany or mahogany type case going by the one and only case picture.  

The movement is a 8 day Westminster chime with half hour and hour strike and spring driven. It has a regulator hand blued on the dial above the 12. It strikes on gongs. It looks like an anchor escapement.

Here is a picture of what I think the pendulum should look like. You are lucky to have the original suspension spring as this can be used as a guide to the length of the pendulum rod, but the weight you can only guess, It would be quite heavy. The numbers you have quoted to me doesn't help me in any way sorry.         

76.391-8-300.jpg

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Thanks for the info OH. Likewise I think its German & may have had a makers name plate screwed above the serial number:

20160530_173804r.jpg

I would suspect that this may have been removed after WW1 due to the anti German attitude at the time, ultimately causing German clocks & other imported goods being labelled 'Foreign'. A quick search for pictures of German bracket clock movements shows similar clocks & movements with missing name plates.

The movement is now stripped awaiting cleaning & I did manage to get it running beforehand. Initial inspection shows no undue wear to the pivots or bushes & no broken or missing parts, so (hopefully) it should be a simple clean & oil. Undecided at the moment whether to re-silver the dial:

20160530_180034r.jpg

 

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I would leave the dial to me its still in good condition. I would go along with that sort of period about the early 1920's.

Here is a good one for you I'm very much into my family tree and on my late Mothers side I found a Bismarck Hambling born 1896, I bet he was popular in the times of WW 1.:D

 

Edited by oldhippy
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  • 7 months later...

After a rather long pause I finally got round to putting it all back together again. I do respect your advice O.H. but in the end I did re silver the dial & frame:

20160602_213454r.jpg

The movement was dipped in Priory clock cleaner & polished as reqd. Reassembly went without any major incident:

P1030318 r.jpgP1030319r.jpgP1030321r.jpgP1030323r.jpg

Hands cleaned & re blued, new leather pads fitted to strikers, case cleaned with Priory polish reviver.

Before & after:

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Apart from cleaning off the crud on the gongs these were left as is, along with the side & back fabric & mesh grills. Going like a train, gongs & bongs all happy. All in all an enjoyable one, but I am still waiting for the pendulum (which has been found apparently) & none the wiser to identification. 

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