German Gilt Table Clock with Book, ca. 1700
Watch
GUEST:
This actually belongs to my husband, and it came into the family from his father. His father had a love for clocks and was a collector.
APPRAISER:
Well, one of the things about this is that it is one of the ultimate collector's clocks that you can find today. The nice thing about clock is that they are signed-- the clock maker, Wilhelm Koberle, and the town that it was made in, Eichstadt, Germany. I looked him up, and he was working in the late 17th century early 18th century. It's a style of clock that was made in Germany during the Renaissance.
GUEST:
Oh, wow.
APPRAISER:
Now, one of the things that makes people most interested in Renaissance clocks is how beautifully they're made, not only on the outside, but on the inside. You can see here the beautiful engraving that you see on the outside of the clock. The interior of the dial has beautiful engraving on it. But if we open up the clock and tilt it back, you can see that as much work has been lavished on the interior of it. Beautiful metalwork. Each piece is just beautifully finished and beautifully engraved. And they are little works of art. It's so wonderfully preserved. It's a clock that a collector has taken care of. During the middle of the 17th century, clock making changed, and one of the things that this book tells you about is how these clocks changed. The book is entitled The Artificial Clock-maker, where artificial means clever. This is a very hard book to find.
GUEST:
Is it?
APPRAISER:
And it was first published about the same time this clock was made.
GUEST:
Oh, wow.
APPRAISER:
In the 1680s. And it was reprinted several times. This is actually the fourth edition of this book. This one was printed in the 1770s. The picture on the side here shows the new pendulum clock. This small rod hangs down, was an invention that came in the middle of the 17th century and made all of these clocks effectively obsolete. But they kept on making them. The Germans, who were the best clock makers in the world, ceased to be that, and the English and the French took over from them. These clocks appear at auction periodically. Normally these clocks will fetch several thousand dollars, perhaps five or six. But because of the beautiful condition of this one, the fact that it's with its book, probably is in the range of $8,000 to $10,000.
GUEST:
Wow.
Appraisal Details
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