German Clock Museum

1852: Robert Gerwig, Director of the Grand Ducal Baden Clockmaking School in Furtwangen, began to collect old clocks as witnesses of traditional handicrafts.

1858: The collection is exhibited for the first time at the Black Forest Industry Exhibition in Villingen.

1874: Historical clocks together with contemporary products of the region are put on display in the newly built trade hall.

1925: The first printed collection catalogue of the Adolf Kistner Historical Clock Collection already lists over 1,000 clocks.

1959: A new building is opened on the site of the old wooden building that had fallen into decay.

1975: The state of Baden-Württemberg purchases the important clock collection from the Kienzle clock factories and transfers it to the museum. Due to the expansion of its collection to include pocket watches and Renaissance clocks, the "Historic Clock Collection" is renamed in 1978 to the "German Clock Museum".

1992: The current museum building is opened. Today, the German Clock Museum is part of Furtwangen University.[5]

Exhibition of Black Forest clocks and tower clocks

Until well into the 20th century, clocks were based on the (apparent) course of the sun and the stars in the sky. This connexion is clearly built into the works of the priest-mechanics of the 18th century with their clockwork models of the cosmos.

In addition to the astronomic calendar clock of Benedictine father and later mathematics professor, Thaddäus Rinderle, of 1787 (Inv. 16-0033), the Copernican Planetarium (Inv. 43-0002, 1774) and a globe clock (Globenuhr, Inv. 43-0001, before 1788) by Philipp Matthäus Hahn are part of the collection.

• Selected examples
• 
  Astronomic-geographical clock, Thaddäus Rinderle, 1787 (Inv. 16-0033)
• 
  Renaissance clock, Hans Koch, around 1580 (K-1288)
• 
  Ivory sundial, Paulus Reinmann, Nuremberg, 1605 (Inv. 2003-074)
• 
  Grandfather clock face with display of true time, William Scafe, around 1730 (Inv. 2009-054)
• 
  Tête de Poupée, Balthazar Martinot, around 1700 (Inv. 2004-119)
• 
  Astronomic calendar clock, around 1760-1770 (Inv. 16-0014)
• 
  Early German precision pendulum clock based on a design by Ignaz Pickel, 1775 (Inv. 2010-051)

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Black Forest supplied the world with low cost clocks. In many small clockmaking workshops, clocks with wooden movements were made which, thanks to the cheap raw material, the use of special tools and machines and specialised craftsmen, were inexpensive and faced no real competition.

A wooden clock face with a white background and colourfully painted motif decorated the Black Forest clocks during the whole of the 19th century. With a colourless, protective varnish the clock faces were resistant to moisture and dirt. From the second half of the 18th century, the varnished plate clock (Lackschilduhr) dominated the European market. Later, it found its way overseas and to the Far East. The design of the clock plate varied depending on the country being exported to. Black Forest traders, the clock carriers (Uhrenträger), sold the clocks locally.

• Selected examples
• 
  Wooden cogwheel clock with figure of Madonna, around 1760 (Inv. 16-0519)
• 
  Musical clock with a Baroque face by Matthias Faller (?), around 1770-1780 (Inv. 14-0044)
• 
  Cuckoo clock, Johannes Wildi, around 1780 (Inv. 2008-024)
• 
  Watchman's clock (Waechterkontrolluhr), Valentin Kammerer, 1806 (16-0477)
• 
  Painted clock (Lackschilduhr) for the French market, Joseph Hummel, around 1840(Inv. 04-0616)
• 
  Railway clock for a small station to a design by Friedrich Eisenlohr, Kreuzer, Glatz & Co., ca. 1853/54 (Inv. 2003-081)
• 
  Knödelesser figurine clock, Anton Häckler, around 1870 (Inv. 06-2080)

In the second half of the 19th century, clock factories displaced the traditional manufacture of clockmaking in the home. Initially relatively small firms emerged that specialised in the production of short runs of qualitatively high value clocks based on the traditional prototype. Over time the factories that became successful were those, especially in the Württemberg (eastern) half of the Black Forest and neighbouring Baar region, that embraced new types of clock, like alarm clocks, that were suited to industrial processes. In most households there was a clock suited to each room, from the alarm clock to the kitchen clock to the sideboard or wall clock.

• Selected examples
• 
  "Bürk Patent" watchman's clock, around 1860 (Inv. 2007-109)
• 
  Nutmeg alarm clock and W10 movement, Junghans, around 1890 (Inv. 2010-021)
• 
  Movement for a Dutch hall clock, L. Furtwängler Söhne, around 1905 (Inv. 16-0663)
• 
  Imperial colonial clock (Reichskolonialuhr), Badische Uhrenfabrik, 1905 (Inv. 1997-029)
• 
  Sideboard clock (Buffetuhr) with German gong, Kienzle Uhren, 1933 (2009-063)
• 
  Alarm clock with musical mechanism, Fichter, around 1960 (Inv. 2009-098)
• 
  "Astrochron" quartz crystal clock, Junghans, 1966 (Inv. 1995-603)

In the 16th and 17th centuries the sometimes voluminous neck clocks (Halsuhren) were more of an expensive piece of jewellery than an accurate timepiece. Not until the time around 1800 were the first pocket watches available for the landed gentry and for science, but at best they displayed minutes. As a result of industrial manufacturing in the second half of the 19th century, however, the pocket watch became an everyday item.

• Selected examples
• 
  Neck clock with alarm, Johannes Reinbold, around 1600 (Inv. K-0473)
• 
  Gold pocket watch, Balthasar de Paep, around 1600 (K-0458)
• 
  Pocket watch, L'Epine, around 1760 (K-0545)
• 
  "Revolution" pocket watch (Revolutionstaschenuhr), conventional and decimal display, around 1795 (K-0714)
• 
  Finger ring with watch, around 1800 (Inv. K-1369)
• 
  Pocket chronometer, Friedrich Gutkaes, around 1820 (Inv. K-0746)
• 
  La Prolétaire pocket watch, Georges Frederic Roskopf, around 1870 (Inv. 2004-050)

Electric Pendulum clock, ca 1845, by Alexander Bain, one of the first electric clocks