Clock Collecting: Modern Grandfather Clocks

Video Transcript

"Of course, you can buy a new or modern grandfather clock as well. The Howard Miller Company, a familiar name probably to many of you, still manufactures many styles of long case clocks that you can buy at furniture stores or online or directly from them. The um....ah...the Howard Miller Company buys all the movements in Germany, so inside those clocks comes a different variety, perhaps, depending on what you spend, of a German movement that is powered by weights, unless you buy down and buy one of the quartz ones. But mostly, you're buying something that's going to tick, it's going to chime, it's going to have weights hanging inside which descend and power the clock, just as they did in...in antique days. Normally, when I'm called upon to work on one of these Howard Miller clocks, which I do regularly because they need service, and they need to be overhauled every ten or fifteen years, the people want to know if they have a good clock. And I guess I have to tell them that they have a decent German movement, which is going to...which is going to be reliable if they have it serviced regularly, and they have a nice piece of furniture. I'm not sure that they have an enduring antique, or something with an enduring aesthetic value as you would if you buy a true antique grandfather clock."