Comtoise clocks from the High Jura!
Black Forest Comtoise clocks!
Lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy!
Black Forest lantern clocks!
Every collector of Comtoise clocks or Black Forest clocks has certainly seen so-called *Black Forest Comtoise* clocks made in the Black Forest, i.e. those clocks in which an embossed Comtoise ornamental plate usually replaced the wooden escutcheon dial or even featured a stucco Comtoise motif dial. Much more numerous, however, are Comtoise clocks made in the High Jura which bore the names of their Black Forest sellers who had settled in France on the dials, i.e. typical names such as: Dilger, Dold, Dorer, Dufner, Faller, Fernbach, Herrmann, Hettich, Hilpert, Hilser, Hirt, Ketterer, Kientzler, Kienzler, Liebher, Pfaff, Scherzinger, Schwer, Schweizer, Tritschler, Villmann, Wehrle, Wintermantel, Zähringer and others.
The Black Forest clock manufacturers and their salesmen sent out all over the world not only sold the typical wooden clocks of the Black Forest abroad, but also copied and then manufactured the local products found in the Black Forest homeland, such as Comtoise clocks from France or table clocks from England. The domestic products were adapted to the foreign product and successfully sold abroad.
Comtoise clocks were only copied to a very limited extent in terms of their movements; the French products were probably too cheap to be built as replicas in the Black Forest.
Lorenz Bob integrated the technology of the Comtoise clock's rack striking mechanism into an 8-day wood-spindle movement. His movement does not seem to have been a great success, as it is extremely rare to find it today. See my *History of Comtoise Clocks*, Volume 1 pages 152/153. Another clock made by Lorenz Bob was probably intended for the Spanish market, see page 451/No. 451 CUM here in the book.
Clocks for the English market took up a much larger space, as Fidel Hepting, for example, who also turned out to be a copyist of French Comtoise clocks, cf. *Geschichte der Comtoise Uhren*, vol. 1, p. 345/no. 345, vol. 2 p. 151 ff. primarily clocks for this English market, cf. vol. 3/1 p. 450, no. 450 CUM. Numerous manufacturers also made clocks for the English market, the best-known company probably being Winterhalder & Hofmaier.
You read the heading above: Black Forest lantern clocks! In the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, there was another - compared to the Jura - much smaller center of clock production in France, whose products were built for the same group of buyers, albeit regionally limited, as those of the Comtoise clocks. We are talking here about the Normandy lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy. As the Black Forest clock manufacturers liked to imitate the products of their foreign competitors, it is not surprising that there are also lantern clocks from the Black Forest that were sold in the Pont-Farcy clock market.
If you know how the Black Forest clockmakers worked, you might well have thought to look for clocks similar to those made in Pont-Farcy.
However, I have to admit that I did not go down this route, but that I had already bought lantern clocks in France many years ago, which for me clearly contained parts that were very reminiscent of Black Forest clocks. This was something I had not found in the relevant literature on Black Forest clocks and which, after gaining further knowledge about French lantern clocks, I now had to recognize as lantern clock movements with French dials made in the Black Forest, which were in competition with the lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy and which were probably offered to the rural customers of the lantern clocks in Normandy as a cheaper version.
As Comtoise clocks and Pont-Farcy clocks were in direct competition and the Black Forest manufacturers/sellers were also in competition with both types of clock, Black Forest lantern clocks are now also mentioned in this volume 3 on the history of Comtoise clocks.
In Normandy, due to its geographical proximity to England alone, the new type of clock - lantern clocks - and the technical innovations - hook movement, rack striking mechanism - spread faster than in other parts of France, in addition to the large cities such as Paris, Lyon or Blois. In the cities, clockmakers mostly worked with the metal brass, while in *the countryside* in the provinces, clockmakers and blacksmiths often worked with the metal iron. The rural population had less purchasing power, so that cheaper clocks had to be offered than the *brass lantern clocks* made by urban clockmakers, i.e. mainly *iron lantern clocks* made of iron.
I am not concerned here with a history of the development of lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy. The sources for these clocks are very modest, much more modest than for Comtoise clocks. Until now, very little was known about these clocks.
Just how little can easily be seen from the fact that even Ton Bollen, in his 1978 book FRANSE LANTAARNKLOKKEN, knew nothing about lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy, or that he wrongly attributed these clocks, which we now clearly attribute to Pont-Farcy, to Saint-Nicolas d'Aliermont. Cf. figs. 61 and 62 and especially 63, where he writes: “Een zelfte type lantaarnklok als van foto 61, +/- 1790. Het belhek is geperst, zoals bij de Comtoises na 1825. De wijzerplaat is direct in het messing gegraveerd. Lantaarnklokken me dit type fronton zijn bijna zonder uitzondering afkomstig uit Saint Nicols d'Aliermont, het latere Comtoise-centrum in Calvados. This type of lantern clock is originally designed as a box movement.” ( The same type of lantern clock as in photo 61, +/- 1790. The ornamental part is embossed like the Comtoise clocks after 1825. The dial is engraved directly into the brass. Almost without exception, lantern clocks with this type of ornamental plate come from Saint Nicols d'Aliermont, the later Comtoise center in Calvados. This type of lantern clock was invariably designed for clock cases )
In his 1984 book L'HORLOGE FRANCAISE A POIDS, René Schoppig also does not mention lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy. On page 176 he speaks of HORLOGE “LANTERNE” NORMANDIE ÉPOQUE LOUIS XVI, on page 178 of HORLOGE “LANTERNE” NORMANDE, on page 198 of HORLOGE “LANTERNE” NORMANDE ÉPOQUE NAPOLÉONIENNE, and depicts clocks that we today clearly attribute to Pont-Farcy. In the 1985 exhibition catalog QUATRE SIÈCLES D'HORLOGERIE FRANCAISE À POIDS / LE PUY-EN-VELAY MUSÉE CROZATIER, the clocks in illustrations No. 57 and No. 58 are referred to as Horloge lanterne normande, whereby no distinction is made between the clocks from Pont-Farcy, which is located in Lower Normandy, and other clocks from Normandy, e.g. clocks from cities such as Caen, Cherbourg, Rouen etc.
For the first time, a work on the lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy was published in 2016/2017 by Daniel Cousin “Les Horloges de Pont-Farcy” in the AFAHA Revue HORLOGERIE ANCIENNE, issues No. 81 of June 2017 and No. 82 of December 2017, which makes it clear that this type of lantern clock was produced in Pont-Farcy and not in many places in Normandy.
The movements of the Pont-Farcy lantern clocks are characterized by the following features.
- A forged iron cage with base and top plate, with 4 rectangular cage struts protruding through the base and top plate. These are approx. 5 - 8 cm long under the cage and thus form the feet on which the movement stands. Extend the cage struts upwards by approx. 2 - 3 cm. However, the upper extension is not a must.
2. 3 rectangular flat iron plates are inserted. They are inserted and held in the lower base plate with 2 small feet at the lower ends, whereas they are inserted into recesses in the top plate, where they are secured and held in position by small wedges. The front flat plate is usually longer than the other two plates and protrudes beyond the top plate so that it can accommodate the front bearing of the armature axle. The going train and striking train are positioned one behind the other, with the middle plate having both the axles of the going train and striking train.
3. A pendulum mount forged from iron is attached to the rear, which later also carries the bearing of the pallet axle.
This cage construction could be mass-produced as a standard cage by a supplier. Very few screws are used on the movements, apparently only for fastening the bell stand and the pendulum holder. Wedges or pins are used. This is not surprising, of course, when you consider the problems that the production of threads, i.e. external threads and internal threads, caused in the 18th century and even in the 19th century.
The lantern clocks from Pont-Farcy were mass-produced products in the tradition of the 17th + 18th centuries, whereas the Comtoise clocks of the High Jura (also the clocks of the early 18th century) were already future products of the 19th and 20th centuries. If you have read the chapter on *Screws on Comtoise clocks* in my book URSPRUNG DER COMTOISE UHREN from 2018, then you will certainly be able to understand why even the oldest Comtoise clocks were ultra-modern products of the time.
Pont-Farcy lantern clocks usually have 36-hour movements. Rarer, but also common, are 8-day movements. They are fitted with round brass or ceramic dials. The oldest clocks also have - very rarely - pewter dials and the more recent clocks also have enamel dials. A decorative element is often mounted above the round dial, often a cast brass part in the older clocks and an embossed brass decorative part in the more recent ones, which was clamped behind the dial between it and the upper short extensions of the cage struts.
Traditionally, these Pont-Farcy lantern clocks displayed the time in grandfather clock cases, i.e. they were designed for installation in grandfather clock cases. In many cases, the observer of the clock could not see anything of the movement, only the round dial and possibly the attached crown were visible.
Based on the wheels, pinions and levers of the Black Forest lantern clocks, it can be assumed that these movements were made between 1840 and 1860, i.e. in the last phase of production of the Pont-Farcy lantern clocks, which were on the market for around 100 years from around 1750 to 1850. The Comtoise clocks of the High Jura were the gravediggers for the Pont-Farcy clocks, the Black Forest lantern clocks helped a little, but were certainly not decisive. If you look at the movements of the Black Forest lantern clocks, you will notice 6 clock parts that are immediately reminiscent of Black Forest movements and which are not found on original French movements.
1. The sheet metal anchor
2. The connection of the pendulum guide wire to the armature shaft and the formation of the pendulum guide simply by bending and shaping the rectangle.
3. The lock washer is secured on the rear plate by a pressure spring made of bent wire.
4. Pendulum suspension by means of a U-shaped elongated loop bent from thin wire, which is suspended at both ends in small holes in a holder.
5. The latching lever of the lock disk is also a bent and machined wire.
6. Pendulum suspension by means of a U-shaped elongated loop bent from thin wire, which is suspended at both ends in small holes in a holder.
The typical Black Forest pendulum, consisting of a wire rod and wooden pendulum disk, usually covered with sheet brass and movable on the wire rod, was probably used for the existing pendulum suspension and is well known to readers.
The clockmakers of the famous HAGNEAUX clock dynasty from Coudres had the Comtoise makers of the High Jura build special Comtoise clocks adapted to the taste of Normandy, whereby the Comtoise clock cage stood on high feet. One such typical example is the clock by Thomas Hagneaux à Coudres, which dates from around 1836/1837. See illustration of the clock on page 478 or in volume 1 History of the Comtoise clock, page 146 no. 146 CUM Thomas Hagneaux
There are also known clocks of this type signed Victor Hagneaux and Nicolas Hagneaux.
