Post from John

The following is a post in from our friend John, who emailed me:

"Frühe Kuckucksuhren. Entwicklungsgeschichte der Schwarzwälder Kuckucksuhr von 1750 bis 1850". In this book Dr. Schneider includes a vast amount of new, original research regarding the history of early Black Forest clocks, clockmakers and their families (many of whose ancestors no longer survive). I have personally found the contents of this book to be essential to the identification of one of my clocks made by the long forgotten Eisenbach clockmaker Johann GEORG Beha.

It is my hope that those of you (like me!) that struggle outside the English language will find this summary helpful. Moreover, in the interest of highlighting the contents of this book in the most concise form, I have forgone the formality of proper English and adopted the outline form:

Selected topics summary of "Frühe Kuckucksuhren. Entwicklungsgeschichte der Schwarzwälder Kuckucksuhr von 1750 bis 1850":

1) This book contains a wealth of NEW information and research concerning the clocks, clockmakers and their families for the early period of Black Forest cuckoo clock development, namely 1750-1850. Whereas previous works have focused primarily upon the later (after ca. 1850) period of cuckoo clock development, this text, for the first time, focuses on the developmental history prior to 1850.

2) This book documents the roles and influence that the various clockmakers and their families played in the technical and business evolution of the Black Forest cuckoo clock design and industry. As many of the families that played key roles in, and even dominated, cuckoo clock production during 1750-1850 period have long since died out, this book documents a period of developmental history of the cuckoo clock industry that would otherwise be lost. For example, as I documented in my previous post, this work led to the identification of our "Beha" clock as a work of Johann GEORG Beha, a distant relative of Johann BAPTIST Beha, whose branch of the Beha family tree has long since become extinct.

3) From the purely pragmatic perspective of identifying the maker's of one's EARLY (1750-1850) cuckoo clocks, this work should be very helpful as Dr. Schneider has included in this book numerous colored photos illustrating both the decorative and technical (movement design and construction) that can be used as comparative examples ("standards"). The numerous summary tables he includes in his book are also very helpful in this regard.

For those of you who are German "challenged", I have found the most convenient way to translate the text in a German language book is to scan the pages into a text editor and then subsequently paste the German text into a German-to-English) language translator (such as Goggle Language Tools) to get a "machine" English translation. The English that comes out of the "machine" translation is not poetic (or even pretty) but the content can be understood.

Finally, in the interest in preserving as much capital as possible for future clock purchases, this book can be purchased directly from Dr. Schneider via his email address asrsoft@t-online.de.

Thanks John! We'd love to see more pictures from your collection!