Featured Help dating this carriage clock

I picked up this carriage clock for not very much today. Hope I'm using the term "carriage clock" correctly - it does strike/chime the hour and half hour.

Face says Kirby Beard & Co. ~~ Paris

The movement is covered and has buit in keys/knobs. Top knob is to wind the chime, bottom to wind the clock, middle knob to adjust the time. The back of the cover is marked:

METAL DORE ( I think this means more or less "gold plated")
SF (Inside of an arch)
15
ON the inside of the door are some numbers - assuming were made to match up parts during assembly.

It is 5" high, and 3 1/4" wide and 3" deep. All of the glass is beveled at the edges. Weighs 2 pounds 5 ounces, or just over a kilo.

Perhaps @afantiques (or anyone else that knows this type of thing) could comment on the age/style shape of this. I did search Kirby Beard & Co. and found a couple other small clocks/timepieces, and I think they started off as a pin/needle manufacturer? Not altogether sure they are the same company that makes the clocks. Anyhow - am excited that I stumbled on this today and snatched it up - hoping it actually is what it appears to be.

Oh what looks to be verdigris in the top left corner of the front is actually some gunk that I wiped right off after taking the pics.

~

 

That clock never saw a carriage..!

I'm going to go out on a very think limb and say it looks like someone put a 1980's , give or take...travel alarm clock mechanism ...in a box.
And the face is a joke....

it's certainly not this...




and looks more like this...




I may be no AF , as far as clocks go.....but donuts to dollars ...when he sees it...he's gonna Blow Chunks !!!!

Please Aaron.....wait for this thing to run down...& then hide it in a closet...
4 Ever...!

 

I agree that it is fairly modern and only in form, a carriage clock, and I can't see how it would strike (not 'chime') with no apparent bell or gong.
It does not appear to be a marriage, but more a case of a manufaturer cutting the cost of what looks a bit like a carriage clock by using a case of the normal form with a cheapo movement, in the reasonable expectation that most buyers have no more idea about clock movements than they do about disestablishmentarianism.

The dial combines certain features of antique clocks to disadvantage, the red background tops off the effect.

 

It definitely strikes...chimes...ill upload a video later...but good to know it's not old. Thank you.

 

Here's a video of it chiming, and a picture of the coiled up bell (through the lozenge shaped cutout hole - which has a little sliding cover to make it louder/quiter.

 

I agree it's an odd duck, but it isn't an alarm clock movement - there is no alarm - and see my video I posted - that it does indeed have a bell inside, and does strike the hour accurately (11 strikes for 11 o'clock etc... Again, thanks for all your help

 

Gracious,such vehemence! Its not THAT bad !

 

"disestablishmentarianism"---Love that word, AF


Well, someone made it, and it will look nice sitting on a shelf, AND if it tells accurate time.....all the better!!!!! I kind of like it!!!

 

I read KIRBI
Thanks for posting the video, the sound is really good for a small clock

 

True - maybe it is a knockoff - or maybe the top parts of the Y wore off. Just looked at it under a loupe and it looks to perhaps be hand painted/written on there.

 

I am hopeful that afantiques did not suffer the predicted gastric distress upon viewing this clock. "Blow Chunks" was certainly not what I expected to read with my first cup of coffee while viewing this page....

 

Not what you hoped for aaroncab, but still a VERY nice little clock, I like it very much .. Joy.

 

I've gotten curiouser and have begun dismantling - It's at least older than 1973...

~

 

an easy mistake to make seeing as how the case is modeled after a travel alarm, and the bell symbol mimics an alarm symbol.

 

More pics ...

I just need to get the time set knob off to completely take the movement out of the shroud...any ideas on that?

The brass panel with the red enamel (face of the clock) has some french writing on the back... "derriere" which as we all know means tushy, or "behind" or "backside"... so maybe there is something to this being French after all? At least the face

~

 

Indeed it does look like the back of a travel alarm. Symbols and all. It's quite...odd.

 

considering it was purchased as thought to be a carriage clock....I wanted to dispel any notion of it being...even a copy.

 

maybe the knobs unscrew , counterclockwise...?

 

I've got the big brass winding knobs for the chime and the mainspring off...just the little time set knob in the middle now - i've tried gripping the hour/minute hand posts while i twist it either way and it doesn't seem to want to budge(dont want to twist too hard) - and i'm not finding a set screw anywhere...yet. I'll keep looking

 

You should have waited for your 2nd cup !!
We all know I can be expressive ....to a fault..