Collecting Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks

The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range located in southwestern Germany where Franz Anton Ketterer, designed the first Cuckoo Clock. The Cuckoo Clocks were hand carved from the many types of wood in the Black Forest. Mr. Ketterer designed the cuckoo clock with hanging weights, once pulled it makes the inside mechanism run the clock. Two bellows sending air through pipes make the cuckoo sound. There have been many artistic variations to these unusual clocks but the basic design and mechanism has been around almost three centuries.

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Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks are beautifully hand carved and there are three common designs including the clocks with hand carved leaves & birds, the hand carved hunter designs and the clocks with wooden houses. These three have been artistically altered time and time again but all are home to the famous birds behind the little door that cuckoos every hour and every half-hour.

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Wood carvers modify their designs with characters and the clockmakers add options such as music, shut-off switches and choices in running time. Cuckoo Clocks usually run one or eight days depending on the weights & mechanism. This means the weights must be pulled after one day for a one-day clock and if you have an eight-day clock they will need to be pulled after 8 days to keep the clock going.

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Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks are considered to be the best cuckoo clocks in the world. The hand carving of these Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks are an Old World craft that has been handed down from family to family, generation to generation.

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The Cuckoo Clock pictured is not antique or even vintage, it's a newer version but it is an 8-day Black Forest Cuckoo Clock. The bird comes out every hour and every half-hour to cuckoo. If you compare the weights with the one-day Cuckoo Clocks you will find the weights are much larger and heavier.

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These clocks can get rather pricey, the older clocks are much more elaborate. Some of the Cuckoo Clocks both old and new have hand carved moving people and animals and music, these tend to be much more expensive, up in the thousand plus price range.

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I bought a half dozen assorted Cuckoo Clocks in 1999 to sell in my Flea Market and I got a good deal for ordering six. Pictured is the least fancy clock they sent me and the only one I have left. This particular clock should retail for $250-$299. This is usually a starting price for an 8-day Cuckoo Clock. If you are considering investing in one you can search the Internet and compare pricing, there are many wesites that sell Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks both in Germany and the United States. If you are a cuckoo clock collector check out ebay, it really is a buyers market and there are bargains galore on these Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks.