Clocks
(5 photos)
1495
The most famous Paris, France, flea market has been located near the Porte de Montreuil, for over 100 years. One year we bought this clock (in a ten-inch-high wooden case) that the seller said was over 100 years old. Instead of a simple bell or chime, the alarm is a music box that plays such a pretty little tune we don’t care how old the clock really is. Everyone “recognizes” this tune. Years ago Emmy had an elderly friend who had the exact same clock, except it played a different tune. It had belonged to her very elderly Aunt, many years earlier, so the “over 100 years” is easy to believe. An antique appraiser confirmed our clock is in fact well over 100 years old.
You can see the music box, at the very bottom.
1496
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1634
Sometime in the early 1980’s we visited Jim’s mother, and others in the midwest. Brother Jesse told us about the flea market at Shipshewana, Indiana, and we just had to visit. On Tuesday evenings people bring tons of things to a building that may be bigger than a football field. Early Wednesday mornings 8 or 10 auctioneers, each with a microphone and small speaker, start to auction everything in sight. They move through this building like a plague of locust, selling everything in sight.
We saw a wall with a dozen or so clocks of all kinds. A few bids were made, and it was ours. It’s sometimes called a “Grandmother’s Clock.” It’s about 45” high, 14” wide, 6” deep, with a 6” face and a 20” pendulum, and there is a lot of heavy hand-carved work at the both top and bottom. This clock needs to be wound each week, and dings the hour only, not the half-hour.
One time when we had it at a clock shop to get it oiled and cleaned, a very old man at the store said he had made his living in the early 1920’s carving clocks just like this one, and we got a bargain, he thought it was worth maybe $2,500 (that was 20 years ago). Since it is not for sale, it doesn’t matter all that much.
Those two objects hanging on the wall, left of the clock (below the picture) are called a compass or a protractor. The one of the left was purchased in the Berlin, Germany, Nollendorfplatz U-Bahnhof (subway station), that was used as an antique market, while the Berlin Wall still stood.
The one of the right (with the photo of my Sweetie) was found during lunch hour as we walked around Vendôme, France. We read somewhere that the town records show Honoré de Balzac was enrolled in school in Vendôme on June 22, 1807, and the former Trinité Abbey was consecrated on May 31, 1040. Just a couple of details — the 22nd and the 31st. Most of us have trouble remembering birthdays and anniversaries this year, let alone the 31st of something almost a thousand years ago.
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1637
When we arrived at the Flea Market in Shipshewana, Indiana (sometime in the 1980s), we found the clock man was in business again today. We bought the clock above, at the same place, a couple of years earlier. Jim made a bid, and we ended up with a clock. It is an 18 inch octagon, beautiful wood (sign said walnut, with a 12-inch round face, with Roman numerals. It requires winding every 30 days, and it strikes both the hour and the half hour.
We removed the pendulum, and carefully packed the clock beneath one of the car seats. Funny thing, for the next couple of weeks on this trip, when we hit a bump just right, the clock would strike some hour or half hour. Never knew when it might do this, and sometimes we didn’t hear it for days.
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1533
Stratford-upon-Avon is loaded with half-timbered houses, hotels, and store buildings. We saw Anne Hathaway’s’ thatched-roof half-timbered home with flowers all over the place, and others that are similar. A few things were purchased at the outdoor marketplace across the street from Willie’s house, (Willie Shakespeare that is), including a brass hourglass. Well now, the stand is brass, but of course both the glass and the sand are made of something else.
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