TickTock, Author at Tick Tock Productions

5 Celebrity Auction Blockbuster Watches

Watches that belonged to celebrities can have a dramatic outcome at world renowned auction houses like Christie’s, Antiquorum, Heritage Auctions and Guernsey’s. The blockbuster bidding can go well beyond initial auction estimates. A watch having once belonged to a famous person can add a strong value to the provenance. Below are the auction results of some famous watches owned by celebrities of the present and the past.

John F. Kennedy was given this gold Omega wristwatch in 1960. Kennedy wore it to his presidential inauguration in January of 1961. On December 16, 2005 the Omega Museum acquired it at auction for $350,000. It was auctioned by Guernsey’s in New York. This watch was part of The Robert White Collection. It is the world’s largest privately owned collection of JFK’s life.

Elvis Presley once owned this 1960 black dialed Omega Constellation Calendar. It was auctioned by Antiquorum of New York on June 12, 2012 for the final hammer price of $52,500. The auction pre-sale estimate was a range of 10,000 to $20,000. The watch is an automatic chronometer movement in a steel case with rose gold plating. It is a piece of rock and roll history. The watch came from a private collection belonging to Charlie Hodge who was a close friend of Elvis Presley. Elvis gave the watch to Hodge while still in the army after Hodge expressed admiration for the watch.

Joe DiMaggio, the baseball hall of famer, once owned this Bulova Accutron. It is a water resistant, stainless steel case with an electronic movement. It was sold on April 10, 2013 at Antiquorum. It was accompanied by a certificate signed by DiMaggio’s granddaughters verifying the provenance. The watch was part of the auction “Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces”. The initial pre-sale estimate was $4000. It sold for $20,625. The watch appeared to be unworn.

Babe Ruth’s world-series Gruen Pocket Watch. Before the major league baseball players were awarded world-series rings for winning the world-series, the teams would celebrate their win by giving their players a commemorative watch. In 1923, the New York Yankees beat the New York Giants in 6 games to win the first world-series. The most treasured of these watches is the one owned by the New York Yankee Babe Ruth. His watch is a Gruen Verithin 1923 world-series championship pocket watch made of 14 carat gold. It was auctioned by Heritage Auctions on February 22, 2014. The final hammer price was $717,000.

Albert Einstein once owned a Longines wristwatch. It is a tonneau-shaped 14 carat gold watch. On October 16, 2008 Antiquorum auctioned the 1930 Longines watch owned by the famous scientist. The backside shows an etching featuring Einstein’s name, Los Angeles and the date of 1931. The auction estimate was $35,000. The final hammer price went for $596,000. This is a record for the highest selling Longines watch.

Do you want to learn more about watch repair? Enroll in our free online watch course here.

The watch repair course is the light version of courses “Introduction to Watch Repair” and “The Watch Repair Course”. The course in this enrollment is called “Watch Repair Basics”. The full courses “Introduction to Watch Repair” and “The Watch Repair Course” consists of 5.5 hours of training on video plus a course manual. You will receive the 19 page full course outline in pdf format. You can print or download the outline to your computer.

Your “Watch Repair Basics” course will consist of 6 video modules along with a series of emails which will have content teaching you various watch repair topics. There will be links to the videos from the emails. Most of the emails contain a video link. The email content along with the videos is what you will receive for this course.

Regards,

John

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October 31, 2016 TickTock Clock Blog, Learn clock or watch repair, Watch Repair Comments Off

Fun Clock Phone Apps

I want to thank you for being a student and horology enthusiast. It really does mean a lot to me. As a horology instructor, connecting with my students is my number 1 priority – so feel free to email me back at [email protected] or through my website if you ever need to get in touch.

Phone apps

There are some free smart phone screen live wallpapers and a phone apps for the horology enthusiast. Most of these versions are free. There are paid versions that provide more features. I am not endorsing any of these apps or wallpapers and I have not tested them. They appear to be from a reliable source as they are directly from the Google Play Store and iTunes websites. I am only providing useful information that may be of interest to you. The iPhone app below does not have a free version. The links below will take you to the apps and live wallpapers. Some offer a video that demonstrate the app in action. You can read about them and decide if it is for you.

Clicking on the pictures below which will take you to the Google Play Store to view these applications.

Pendulum Clock LWP

Watch Gears Live Free Wallpaper

Brass Gears Clock

The app above uses the phone microphone to capture the audible ticks of the clocks escapement and pendulum. It determines the beats per minute and the rate of error in seconds per day fast or slow. This one is not free. It will cost you $9.99

ClockMaster Clock Time Regulation

This one is very elegant. It has very a fluid movement. The link to this app will provide a demonstration video show the operation of this phone app.

Gold Clock Live

Pocket Watch 3D

The above pocket watch app is a 3D application which moves in a fluid fashion on the surface of your phone. Clicking on the link will take you to the application site that has a video showing the application in action.

Best wishes,

John

Tick Tock Productions

P.S. If you know of someone who may be interested in clock or watch repair, please send them the following link: www.ticktockpro.com/free.htm (Copy and paste the link to an email)

October 27, 2016 TickTock Clock Blog, Learn clock or watch repair, Watch Repair Comments Off

Famous people and their clocks

Famous people and their clocks

Rap and Hip-hop’s most famous hype man, Flavor Flav, knows the value of time.

Flavor Flav on Jimmey Kimmel Live!

The reality star, author, and member of 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Public Enemy has been wearing a dinner-plate-sized clock around his neck since 1987. The comical artist, whose birth name is William Drayton Jr., made the timepiece one of music’s funniest fashion statements.

Flavor Flav clock store

William Jonathan Drayton Jr. (born March 16, 1959), better known by his stage name Flavor Flav is an American musician, rapper, actor, television personality, and comedian who rose to prominence as a member of the rap hip-hop group Public Enemy.

Drayton was born in Roosevelt, New York and grew up in nearby Freeport, two communities each within the town of Hempstead, New York. He began playing the piano at age five and is self-taught. A musical prodigy, he sang in the youth choir at his church and mastered the piano, drums, and guitar at an early age. According to Chuck D, he is proficient in 15 instruments. He set a house on fire as a small child while playing with a lighter; by the time he dropped out of school in the 11th grade, he had been in and out of jail for robbery and burglary. Flav graduated from culinary school in 1978, and has cooked in several restaurants. He attended Adelphi University on Long Island where he met Carlton Ridenhour, who would become known as Chuck D. They first collaborated on Chuck D’s rap hip-hop college radio show, and then they began rapping together. The two worked for Chuck D’s father’s delivery service.

Flavor Flav on the red carpet

Flavor Flav, who gave clocks to the top candidates during the three seasons of his dating show, “Flavor of Love,” explained the origins of his unusual necklace during a 1994 MTV interview: “Before I started out wearing these clocks, we started off with little stopwatches, and one day I just wanted to do something out of the ordinary,” he said during an interview with the cable channel.

A rapper friend dared him to replace the stopwatch with an actual clock, and he tried it. “It was looking crazy, but I liked it,” he said. Public Enemy front-man Chuck D wore a clock for a brief stint, too, but it became a staple for Flavor. He told Vanity Fair in an interview that he owns more than 100 timekeepers.

Flavor Flav with actress Brigitte Nielson

Flavor said the clock joke eventually served a more serious purpose. But there’s actually a deeper meaning behind it.

“The reason why I wear this clock is because it represents time being the most important element in our life,” he said. “Time can’t afford to be wasted, but not only that, but God only gave us one life. Each minute we live, we got to live each second to our best value. Time brought us up in here, and time can also take us out.”

50th Birthday party for Flavor Flav

Even though Flavor often seems aloof, his accessory is a reminder that he is actually quite aware. “I always say, ‘I’m clockin’, I’m clockin’.’ That means I’m paying attention, so you can’t get fast on me because I know what time it is.”

September 29, 2016 TickTock Clock Blog Comments Off

The history of the words clock and watch Part 3

Many terms related to time. Clocks and watches have an extensive history, some dating back to ancient Egyptian water clocks.

As time continues, more words with “clock” or “watch” in them will emerge, especially as technology continues to advance.

100 years ago, the term “clock radio” or “cell phone clock” would not appear in any dictionary.

^Wristwatch

^{The wristwatch concept goes back to the production of the very early watches in the 16th century. Elizabeth I of England received a wristwatch from Robert Dudley in 1571, described as an arm watch. Initially, wrist watches were almost exclusively worn by women. Men used pocket watches up until the early 20th century.}

^{The Garstin Company of London patented a “Watch Wristlet” design in 1893, but they were probably producing similar designs from the 1880s.}

^{Wristwatches were first worn by the military towards the end of the 19th century, when the importance of synchronizing maneuvers during combat. The British Army began using wristwatches during colonial military campaigns in the 1880s. The importance of coordinating troop movements and synchronizing attacks against the highly mobile insurgents became paramount, and the use of wristwatches subsequently became widespread among the officers. The company}^{Mappin & Webb}^{began production of their successful “campaign watch” for soldiers during the campaign at the Sudan in 1898 and increased production for the wars a few years later.}

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September 15, 2016 TickTock Uncategorized Comments Off

The history of the words clock and watch Part 2

In the previously referenced dictionary report from Rice University, the Middle Dutch word “clocke” originated from the Old French word “cloche,” meaning “clock bell.” This Old French word’s origin influence came from the Late Latin term “clocca,” which indicated a sound that imitated a bell.

According to the Etymology Dictionary, it is believed that the word “clocca” was in turn derived from the Old Irish and Celtic word “clocc.”

It is possible that the Irish missionaries spread the use of the word “clocc“. The English language then adopted the word from the Middle Dutch “clocke,” modifying it to “clock,” for the first time meaning only the timepiece and not including a bell in its definition.

The term “bell” in the English language had origins in Proto-German. The word was used to replace the Old English word “dægmæl,” which meant “day measure” or “day mark”. The marking of the day. A similar word to this in the Latin language was “horologium,” of which the Greek term “hora” added with the ending “logy.” This ending in Greek is used to refer to a science, study or theory. This is where the modern English term “horology” comes from. Horology was first documented as an English word in 1819.

Clock enthusiasts know that horology is the science of measuring time.

The English language has a few other references of the word “clock” that have interesting origins.

According to the Etymology Dictionary, the term “o’clock” was used to shorten the phrase “of the clock.”

The term “of the clock” had been used before this point to refer to time on a clock face.

Air force fighter pilots will say: enemies at three and six o’clock!

Originating in 1904, the term “o’clock” was used by pilots and firearm shooters to reference directions. People still use this reference today. For example, if someone sees an enemy, they may say to a friend “Enemy at five o’clock,” referencing the position of the person from their location.

In the Etymology Dictionary is the origin of the term “clockwork.” Originated from the English language, this word emerged in the 1660s, meaning “mechanism of a clock.” The old French term “cloque” that had a part in the evolution of the word “clock” mostly indicated a bell sound. From the word “cloque,” the similar English word “cloak” emerged, created to describe the bell shape of a cloak garment. Another commonly term, “clockwise,” was born in 1879, used to describe the direction in which the hands traveled around the face of a clock. The term “clock” was paired with the word “wise,” meaning “the way of proceeding.” When combined, the meaning of “clockwise” is “the way the clock proceeds.”

September 1, 2016 TickTock Learn clock or watch repair Comments Off

The history of the words clock and watch Part 1

The word “clock” was likely derived from the Middle Dutch word “clocke.” An etymology and word origin list from Rice University states that the word “clocke” was used to describe the noise making bell in the church tower and is defined as a bell clock.

From the description in the definition, the bell in the Dutch church towers made a lower “bong” type of sound instead of the high pitched clang sound that is most commonly associated with church tower bells. The word “clocke” was formulated before clocks with faces emerged. The description states that later a “newfangled timekeeper” with a rounded face and hands was added to the church tower.

“Clocke” was the original word, but when the English imported the timepieces, they shortened the name to “clock.” Differences in the English and Dutch language affecting this issue were that the Dutch language had one word that meant both “bell” and “clock,” while the English language developed two separate words. One English word meant “clock” and one meant “bell,” to not cause confusion between the two and provide a distinction between a ringing bell and a clock with a face.

In the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “clock” originated in the late 14th century. This time line matches with the above reference because clocks in this era were not the typical face clocks that displayed the time, featuring a face and hands.

The Anderson Institute reports that during the 14th century, the clocks used then are now referred to as turret clocks. Turret clocks were devices powered by a verge escapement, weights and chains. The bell clock was then placed in the bell tower to chime the passing hours. The chains had to be wound and would often lose balance, resulting in the hours being tolled late or early; these clocks were not very accurate.

One of the oldest surviving turret clocks exists today in England and dates to 1386. Located in the Salisbury Cathedral, this clock only tolls the hours. See the picture of the clock movement to the right. In clock history, these beginning devices were the predecessor of larger wall clocks with faces that had similar functions and structure.

The word “clocke” also had influence from words in other foreign languages.

That concludes are part 1 – part 2 will be coming out next week.

Thanks for taking the time to read our articles and we hope you enjoy our information Learning clock or watch repair.

August 18, 2016 TickTock Learn clock or watch repair, Watch Repair Comments Off

The Facts About Clock and Watch Collecting and Repair

There are many sources for antique clocks and watches. Each source provides its’ own range of quality and price when shopping for antique clocks and watches.

Antique shops: What you see is what you get. Generally, these are sold “as is”. Quality and condition can be below average with high prices. Often the age and price of a clock or watch can be exaggerated by the seller with the hope that a naive buyer will take the bait. I personally know of a person who paid $4000 for a $600 clock. An astute collector will usually avoid these shops. In a rare instance there may be a diamond among the rough. Most antique shop owners have a very good idea regarding the value of their inventory.
Antique auctions: Generally the quality can be the same or superior to antique shops. It depends greatly on the auction house and the source of the auctions’ inventory. You are more likely to pay a fair price and have a better chance in finding something special. I like buying at auction, but auctions can vary widely in type and quality of merchandise. To find auctions in your area, search the following site: http://www.auctionzip.com/
Estate sales: You never know what you may discover. Sometimes it can be a once in a life time find.See the picture to the right of a large 3 weight Vienna Grand Sonnerie Regulator by the Viennese clockmaker Adolf Weinberger. This is my best estate sale find to date.

Usually the clocks or watches are fair to average. Prices can be reasonable to high. If the estate sale is professionally arranged, prices can be high. Often there is a 20% or higher discount on everything remaining the second day of the sale. Chances are that the best items are already sold on the first day. If is a private or family arranged estate sale, prices can be very reasonable. You can find estate sales in your area by searching the following link: https://www.estatesales.net/

Clock and watch collectors: Collectors of antique clocks and watches have the best clocks or watches with regard to condition and selection. I have found their prices to be very reasonable. The hard part is finding collectors willing to part with their clocks or watches. You can find collectors at NAWCC (National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors) conventions and local chapters.
Antique clock and watch collector associations: NAWCC http://nawcc.org/ , AWCI http://www.awci.com/ and BHI http://bhi.co.uk/ are the largest organizations for clock and watch enthusiasts. Everyone from the casual collector to professional horologists can be found in these associations. Many of these associations have fairs, regional and national conventions. Many antique clocks, watches and collectors can be found at these events. A great opportunity to find and buy antique clocks and watches.
The least likely place to find antique clocks and watches are at garage sales. There was a time many years ago that you might have found something at a garage sale, but not much anymore.

The popularity of antique clocks and watches has grown tremendously over the last couple of decades. There are many reasons. Some think it is due to an aging population that has an appreciation for nostalgia, history, art, culture and a fascination for the past. People appreciate the design, craftsmanship and engineering that went into clock or watch making. Many clocks and watches are heirlooms passed down by generations that have so much sentimental value. Why have a non- working watch, or clock on the mantle or wall? Would it not be wonderful to have it run again as it once did for your parents, grandparents or other older present or departed elder family members?

Do you want to learn more about clock repair? Enroll in our free online clock course here.

Do you want to learn more about watch repair? Enroll in our free online watch course here.

Antique clock and watch repair services today are in high demand. There are thousands of antique clocks and watches waiting to be repaired. Almost anyone can learn with proper instruction. Many people repair clocks or watches as a hobby, maintain their collection and there are others that have a part time or full time business of repairing watches or clocks.

If you know of someone who may be interested in watch or clock repair, please share this post.

August 11, 2016 TickTock Watch Repair Comments Off