All bearing, pivots and pinions have been repaired or polished and the clock now has a wonderful positive action to its highly polished pendulum. It gives the brass a finish that cannot be replicated with modern abrasive pastes and a deep highly polished lustre to the parts. The double weight Gustav Becker movement has been fully overhauled by me personally and has been polished using an age old technique with chalk. I have carefully removed every layer of dust, dirt and grime to reveal its original shellac finish and it look splendid. The undamaged case has no dents, knocks or scrapes and has been fully restored back to its original condition. It is not often we find a Gustav Becker clock in such a superb condition and we felt it was about time that one received the "full" treatment. This clock has a Vuliamy escapement, like the Gustav Becker above.A Stunning 19th century Gustav Becker Vienna double weight wall clock. Other differences lie in the shape of the plates, since fine French clocks usually have round plates, and in the escapement. Everything about the mechanism is comparable in hand-finished quality to a Japy or a Vincenti, and does not reflect the mass-production technology found in Gustav Becker clocks. It has been more than ten years since I last saw a Lenzkirsch, so these clocks are quite rare. Unable to survive the Great Depression, Gustav Becker was taken over by Uhrenfabrik Junghans in 1935.įor comparison, here is a Lenzkirsch from the 1880s.
The only disadvantage here is that the design adds weight to the pallet assembly, so more weight will be required to keep this clock running. This feature would help considerably in lowering the cost of production.Įach pallet has two screws to hold it in place. The pallet assembly has a Vuliamy escapement, which is a Graham escapement with adjustable pallets. Outstanding quality, for a fraction of the cost, is what earned Gustav Becker a gold medal, earned at the 1852 Silesia Trade Exposition.
The beat adjustment could be mounted on the pendulum itself, which is sometimes seen on other types of clocks. The pallet assembly should be as light as possible. One issue I have with Vienna Regulator clocks, and you can see it on this clock, is that the pallet assembly has the beat adjustment mounted to it, adding a lot of unnecessary weight.
Taking this clock apart is straightforward, as it has the conventional design for the rack and snail. The following photos were taken during disassembly. You can see that, compared to the Vienna Regulator shown on the previous page, the levers are larger and heavier. This example is probably from the late 1880s. The name brand of Gustav Becker has excellent recognition, making these clocks highly collectible. It is my understanding that a Gustav Becker clock originally cost only one tenth the price to produce, compared to a comparable hand-made regulator clock from Vienna. The introduction of factory methods of clock production increased the quantities produced and lowered the prices dramatically. This clock looks like a Vienna Regulator, but it was factory made by Gustav Becker in Freiburg, next to the Black Forest in Southern Germany.
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