Antiques: Clock’s cuckoo weighs in at 330lb

It’s situated in the south west of the country in the state of Baden Wurttemberg and covers an area 100 miles long by 30 miles wide.

We saw a lot of trees! It is said that there are over 90 billion trees in the forest.

The scenery was breath-taking and was made even better with several stops at local cafes to sample the traditional Black Forest Gateaux!

One of the highlights of the trip was to visit Triberg the home of the world’s largest cuckoo clock. It was designed and built by Ewald and Rolf Eble and was completed in 1994 having taken five years to make.

The clock chimes every half an hour and always attracts quite a crowd. It is fifteen feet tall and weighs six tons that’s around sixty times the average cuckoo clock! The pipes are thirteen feet long and the pendulum a massive twenty-six feet long.

The cuckoo alone weighs 330 pounds! Like a traditional household cuckoo clock, one weight drives the pendulum and it has another to drive the cuckoo.

This reminded me of the famous clock outside Fortnum and Mason in London which was commissioned by the shop’s owner.

W Garfield Weston in 1964 and designed by Berkeley Sutcliffe. It depicts William Fortnum and Hugh Mason each holding a candle who bow to each other every hour and play 18th century airs every 15 minutes.

They are even dressed up at Christmas with hats, gifts and even a tipple!

There are many shops in Triberg selling every kind of cuckoo clock imaginable.

The first Black Forest cuckoo clocks were made as long ago as the 1740/50’s often with different craftsmen making the components such as the gears, the casings or the wood carving.

We often sell cuckoo clocks at Sheffield Auction Gallery, and the older and more intricate the carving, the better. They can be brought for as little as £50 up to several thousands.

The Black Forest is of course also known for its wood carvings especially models of bears.

I treated myself to a lovely example as a reminder of our trip and now “Boris the Bear” has pride of place in my display cabinet keeping the carved cows and other animals I have brought over the years from my trips to Austria and Switzerland.

We often sell carvings such as these, they can vary from small souvenir animals to bookends, blotters, boxes which can be brought for under £100 to benches with the ends carved as bears and large bear hall and umbrella stands.

These are always sought after with the larger pieces fetching several thousand pounds at auction.

If you are lucky enough to find a signed piece this will add to its value the most famous being Huggle.

Another tip is to try and collect other animals such as dogs which are rarer than the famous bears and therefore will fetch a premium at auction.