Posted October 22, 2012
Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks, made over literally hundreds of years in the Black Forest of Germany by companies and individual craftsmen like Anton Schnieder Cuckoo Clocks, have set the gold standard for the highest quality and workmanship for both wall cuckoo clocks and the less common shelf cuckoo clocks. Of course, with the literally tens of thousands plus of individual craftsmen in the Black Forest region of Germany over hundreds of years, almost any kind of clock creation imaginable has been made including black forest rare and unusual black forest clocks, and cuckoo clocks. Also clocks with automation, monks, soldiers, exposed birds, singing birds, trumpeter clocks, flute clocks organ clocks, old shield cuckoos, musical clocks, and ornately carved German clocks.
One of the personal favorites of the antique cuckoo clocks clocks is the cuckoo quail clock, where there are two doors for the bird, and the cuckoo will come out generally at the hour and half hour, and the cuckoo bird is joined by the quail bird on the hour. Cuckoos are actual birds, as explained on the Wikipedia website in part as follows: The cuckoos are generally medium sized slender birds. The majority are arboreal, with a sizable minority that are terrestrial. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority of species being tropical. Some species are migratory. The cuckoos feed on insects, insect larvae and a variety of other animals, as well as fruit. Many species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, but the majority of species do raise their own young.
Having said all of the above, have you ever see a young child not look at a cuckoo clock in delight and amazement as the cuckoo bird clock comes out of the cuckoo clock on the hour, or the eager anticipation as the hour nears and just the expectation of seeing the cuckoo bird, or the cuckoo and quail, brings squeals of delight from youngsters.
The the types of cuckoo clocks can be grouped into 2 categories, with 3 subcategories in total. The first is mechanical cuckoo clocks, the highest quality of which are all still German and made by companies like Schneider or Hones. These fall into three subcategories, including 8 day mechanical clocks, which frequently include automata, and 1 day mechanical clocks, meaning that these clocks need to be wound, by pulling up the weights, every 8 or 1 day or days. The second category is quartz driven mechanical clocks which are run by batteries, and are generally much less expensive. They do not require winding, and the cone weights are purely decorative and do not go up and down. These quartz, or battery-driven, cuckoo clocks also generally have both automatic nighttime shutoff and volume control.
The quality of the sound of the quartz cuckoo clocks is good, but not as good as the mechanical clocks. The mechanical clocks tend to have much more elaborate wooden case designs, frequently with quite entertaining moving figures or automata which can be quite entertaining. Dancers is one of many frequent motifs. Traditionalists tend to prefer the mechanical cuckoo clocks, as these are built the old fashioned way. More modern day cuckoo clocks tend to include many clock styles and designs which incorporate color to make the clock and its scenes much more vibrant and lively than can be done simply with hand carved dark wood. Almost all of the cuckoo clocks we sell are hand carved with solid wood and made in Germany, in the Black Forest region where Anton Schneider first started making cuckoo clocks well over a hundred years ago.
Here are some examples of the different type of cuckoo clocks:
8 Day Mechanical Schneider Cuckoo Clocks
1 Day Mechanical Schneider Black Forest Cuckoo Clock
Quartz Driven Schneider Cuckoo Clock
Along with Schneider Cuckoo Clocks, other makers such as Rombach and Haas cuckoo clocks and Hones cuckoo clocks are still out there also making good quality German Black Forest cuckoo clocks. After many years of selling different cuckoo clock makers, we have found that the best overall maker of cuckoo clocks to best satisfy the needs of our customers with top quality clocks, great selection, and affordable prices is the Anton Schneider cuckoo clock collection.
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