North Coast Imports, Inc.

Everybody knows about the clock in Munich and Prague, but did you know about Tokyo? I really like the music... Here's another one in Tokyo. And, of course, fans of North Coast Imports already know about this one in Ohio... Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!!

Here's something interesting... Forget diamonds - one Swiss watchmaker is betting on watches made from moon dust, parts of the Apollo 11 rocket and bits of spacesuits to capture consumer cash as an economic slow down bites. More than 600 watchmakers have the Swiss brand stamp, so Geneva-based Romain Jerome aims to use "inaccessible materials" to set its products apart from rivals such as Richemont's Vacheron Constantin and independent watchmaker Patek Philippe. "We chose the space conquest," he said. "Going to the moon was the biggest adventure of human kind." The group will make 1969 watches - matching the year of Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's first journey to the moon - for the "Moon Dust-DNA" collection. The watches, which start at $US15,000 and can cost as much as $US500,000, will be launched in Geneva on Wednesday and presented to customers at next year's Baselworld, the largest annual fair for the watch and jewelry ...

Ingolf Haas is starting a movement of re imagining the cuckoo clock. North Coast Imports is proud to be introducing this new and exciting line of handcrafted works of art. Stay tuned for more designs. Experimenting on the cuckoo clock is a real trend among designers and conceptual artists. Here's a wacky idea, that may not make it to mass production: a cuckoo clock based on the movie Stanley Kubricks's The Shining ... (click on the link and scroll down)

Be sure to visit your nearest North Coast Imports dealer! The new cuckoo catalogs are arriving in a store near you this week. The selection is fantastic. Choose the most fascinating and beautiful designs from Romba, Sternreiter, and Hubert Herr! In the meantime, do you remember this?

Dubbed the strangest clock in the world, it features a giant grasshopper and has 60 slits cut into its face which light up to show the time. Its creator John Taylor said he "wanted to make timekeeping interesting". BBC That's pretty much NCI's mantra - "Making timekeeping interesting." In addition to our own clocks, it's great to find extravagant works of horological art being produced throughout the world. This one is pretty fascinating. Although it has LED lights and an electric winding motor, it is otherwise all mechanical with a grasshopper escapement. By the way, our new cuckoo clock catalog should be finished printing by Friday. Make sure we have your favorite clock or jewelry or gift store on file so that they will receive our new catalog.

You saw it here first! North Coast Imports is pre-releasing our NEW Cuckoo catalog #56. You can download a PDF of the 40-page, pre-print, rough draft here: Please keep in mind that this is still a rough-draft copy. It's colors are not very sharp, and there are a few pictures missing. We were so excited, we wanted to put out an advance copy, but for full details and pics visit our main website at http://www.northcoastimports.com/ All of our cuckoo clocks are up there, even with movies of each clock! To have and hold your very own copy of the catalog you can print out the PDF!

This is the first of a series of posts about interesting early clocks. and the new clocks that were inspired by them. Su Song was a renowned Chinese statesman, astronomer, cartographer, horologist, pharmacologist, mineralogist, zoologist, botanist, mechanical and architectural engineer, poet, antiquarian, and ambassador of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). He was the engineer of a water-driven mechanical clock in medieval Kaifeng which used an escapement similar to the modern anchor escapement. It was also the first known clock to use the "endless chain drive." The clock was a giant astronomical clock with mechanically animated puppets. For more new clocks similar to this ancient idea, check out our website at www.NorthCoastImports.com