Fixer-Uppers

Unfortunately, there is no turning back the clock with tall-case timepieces displaying poor restoration or repairs. According to Sotheby’s specialist Jonathan Hills, most connoisseurs prefer “very dirty” but untouched pieces to ones in good shape that have been heavily overhauled. “For any serious collector, pure form—that is, with the original mechanism, dial and case—is always more desirable,” says Emily Eerdmans, of New York’s Hyde Park Antiques.

This bias was evident in February at Christie’s London, in the bidding for a circa 1685 walnut tall-case with alarm. Attributed to Joseph Knibb, the clock was thought to have a replaced dial. The estimate of £30,000 to £50,000 ($58,500–97,500), says Christie’s expert Jamie Collingridge, “was half what it should be, and [the piece] still went unsold.” Similarly, a replaced case caused a Thomas Tompion tall-case from the same period to sell for only £48,500 ($94,600), less than half what an unrestored example would fetch.

Feet rot, moldings fall off, finials are lost, movements are dropped, dials are repainted, and signatures are tampered with, but the biggest problem, asserts Christopher Dean, of San Francisco’s Daniel Stein Antiques, is when the movement or dial is not with its original case—when the parts have been married. “It happens quite a lot, in the past as well as now,” he says. Sympathetic repairs in sync with the clock’s integrity, on the other hand, are acceptable.

As for tall-case clock maintenance, Hills recommends having a timepiece that is kept running serviced by a qualified restorer once every 10 years.

"Fixer-Uppers" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents.