mission style grandfather clock
02 February 2019
Description

Mission style grandfather clock. Just over six feet tall, 19 inches wide, 12 inches deep. Made of solid quarter-sawn white oak, the wood traditionally used for mission furniture. Quality construction with mortise and tenon joinery using high-strength glue. Eight-day German made mechanical movement. Chimes on the quarter, half, three-quarter and hour. Three chime settings plus a silent setting. A removable chime grille on each side of the clock helps let out the wonderful sound and provides access to the clock works. Has a lower door for pendulum access. Lower door locks for security. Upper door allows access to clock face for winding. Both doors have tempered glass. Black clock face numerals and matching black hardware. Stained with Michael's cherry, a traditional stain for mission furniture. Has four leveling feet for uneven floors. Includes a wall anchor kit for safely securing the clock to a wall.

Provenance

I built the clock in late 2017. I build furniture as an avocation.

Acquired from
Other
For sale
No
Answered within about 18 hours
By David
Feb 03, 18:04 UTC
Fair Market Value
$1,500 - $1,750 USD
Insurance Value $0 USD
What does this mean?

Hello Kirk,
Thank you for sending your own personal handcrafted clock to mearto for appraisal. It will be my pleasure to try to be of assistance today.

TITLE:
Michael's Cherrywood stained, quarter sawn oak, triple weight driven, eight-day time, strike and quarterly chiming tallcase clock in the ‘Mission-Style’, using a German made movement, case made by Kirk Hagen, Ogden, Utah, circa 2018.
DESCRITPTION:
Case – 72” x 19” x 12” tallcase clock in the Mission style using solid quarter-sawn oak with Michael’s cherrywood stain (the type used on the original Mission oak furniture). There is a concave molded overhung flat pediment above a square glazed dial door, the round glass enclosed by a wooden dial surround and the door edge trimmed with half round narrow molding with an iron tear drop type of door pull. The side of the hood has a rectilinear side-light with vertical open fret slats to allow the strike and chime to be emitted from the inside of the case. Below the dial is a full length rectangular glazed trunk door, allowing one to see the fall of the three brass canister weights and the arc of the pendulum as it swings inside the case. This door also has an iron tear drop pull and a small iron key escutcheon. The sides of the case have rectilinear inset oak panels. The case rests on straight bracket feet which are simply the extensions of the flat oak boards that form the side of the case. There are levelers under the feet. . .
Dial: Appears to be an artificially aged paper dial with bold Arabic hours, open bar minute ring with triangular markers placed every five minutes, subsidiary seconds ring over the dial center, steel Chippendale style hands, a lever for setting the chimes (Westminster, Whittington, and St. Michaels melodies) or to silence that feature and it appears to have some type of drawn spandrel decoration if one chose to use a dial door with a large square glass rather than a wooden dial surround.. . .
Movement: Not shown but a modern, perhaps Franz Hermle or Kieninger solid brass plate movement powered by the descent of three brass canister weights for this eight-day going, half hour striking and quarterly chiming movement. Chiming may be on a series of metal rods with multiple movement hammers. . .
Condition: In mint condition - case, dial and movement, the latter being fully functional.
The Mission type case is simple in design and quite elegant in its simplicity. The dial is slightly darkened (as it should appear if it was made just about a century ago). Has four leveling feet for uneven floors. Includes a wall anchor kit for safely securing the clock to a wall. Quality construction with mortise and tenon joinery using high-strength glue. Both doors have tempered glass. This is a well-executed replication of a wonderful, typically western American design, that is quite popular today, perhaps nowhere more so than in the West of course.
HISTORICAL DATA:
MISSION STYLE FURNITURE
Gustav Stickley (March 9, 1858 – April 21, 1942) was an American furniture manufacturer, design leader, publisher and the chief proselytizer for the American Craftsman style, an extension of the British Arts and Crafts movement.
Stickley's new furniture reflected his ideals of simplicity, honesty in construction, and truth to materials. Unadorned, plain surfaces were enlivened by the careful application of colorants so as not to obscure the grain of the wood and mortise and tenon joinery was exposed to emphasize the structural qualities of the works. Hammered metal hardware, in armor-bright polished iron or patinated copper emphasized the handmade qualities of furniture which was fabricated using both hand working techniques and modern woodworking machinery within Stickley's Eastwood, New York, factory (now a part of Syracuse, New York). Dyed leather, canvas, terry cloth and other upholstery materials complemented the designs.
While the British movement was a Victorian-era phenomenon, its translation to the American setting took place precisely at the moment when that era was coming to a close. It can be said that the American movement that also emphasized craftsmanship was also a design reform movement that encouraged originality, simplicity of form, local natural materials, and the visibility of handicraft, and was concerned with ennobling the more modest home of the rapidly expanding American middle class.
The Mission style incorporated locally handcrafted wood, glass, and metal work that is both simple and elegant. A reaction to Victorian opulence and the increasingly common mass-produced housing elements, the style incorporated clean lines, sturdy structure, and natural materials. The name comes from a popular magazine published in the early 1900s by furniture maker Gustav Stickley called The Craftsman,
PRICING:
The pricing of this clock in a retail store is straight forward. The price varies in a narrow range of $4000+/-. The real problem is to determine if it has much fair market value, as if you went out to try to sell this to someone who appreciated what you had built. Looking at auction sites and E-Bay there is little to be found in the way of newly built examples, but the few that I see tend to sell in the $250-$600 range. One person who is a retailer tried to sell his example on e-Bay for $3299 and could not do it, and he says he has sold two others (price not supplied). So, although I find that your clock is the equal of the $4000 retail models sold in stores, you could not sell it for that price as a private individual. I have valued yours at $750-$1000 because it is in mint condition and truly follows the form and substance of the earlier Mission style.
I hope I have been of assistance to you today. Congratulations on a fine piece of properly done carpentry.
My best,
David

Kirk hagen Feb 03, 20:48 UTC

Hello, David. Thank you for your detailed response and appraisal. I did not disclose this in my description of the mission style grandfather clock, but there is approximately $1350 worth of materials alone (Hermle clock works, wood, glass, hardware, stain, etc.) in this clock. I don't know if you can, or are inclined, to modify the appraisal, but I felt that you should know the cost of materials that went into this piece. --Kirk Hagen

David Feb 03, 22:11 UTC

Hi Kirk,
Normally I would not alter the price simply because I am trying to estimate what you could get if you went to sell it, and most buyers do not appreciate your costs. But it is so finely crafted that I have decided to relevate the price to cover your costs plus a tiny bit more. After all, it is probably a labor of love and who can put a price on that.
Thank you,
David

David Feb 03, 22:13 UTC

Hi Kirk,
Normally I would not alter the price simply because I am trying to estimate what you could get if you went to sell it, and most buyers do not appreciate your costs. But it is so finely crafted that I have decided to elevate the price to cover your costs plus a tiny bit more. After all, it is probably a labor of love and who can put a price on that.
Thank you,
David

Kirk hagen Feb 03, 22:31 UTC

David, thank you for reconsidering the appraisal and updating the amount to reflect the cost of materials. I greatly appreciate it. --Kirk

David Feb 04, 00:49 UTC

Thank you!
David

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