http://www.heritech.com/soil/scrapbk/clocks.htm
Possum
Ridge Reproductions
Full Sized Eli Terry Reproductions
Almost "Not For Sale" at any price...
By William Carr
Clocks No. 37 and 38
(Click on photos above to see a larger image)
These Clocks are already collector's items.
Actually, that's a lie. Clocks 37 and 38 no longer exist. They were destroyed in a fire when the store in which they were consigned burned to the ground. Still, our Terry clock reproduction is one of the most accurate reproductions of this popular Pillar and Scroll clock style ever produced. They are collectors' items because they can no longer be purchased, except on very rare occasions (which are never announced to the public because only one or two come available at a time). Only a few more will be made and that will be the end of my very sporadic clock-making business. As un-businesslike as it may seem, I gladly direct you to the very worthy competition.
The originals were made by Eli Terry and sons, (and others) in the early decades of the 1800's and are now rarely seen outside of museums. Possum Ridge Reproductions are meticulously made of the finest materials, with close attention to detail. As with the originals, mahogany veneer over fir, pine, or yellow poplar is used. Pillars and leg pieces are solid mahogany. Doors have the herring-bone grain pattern of the original clocks. Facing of top and sides are cross-grained.
The clock stands approximately 30 inches high (to the top of the center finial), is 17-1/2 inches wide, and 4-3/4 inches deep. The original clocks had 30 hour, weight driven, wooden movements, which Eli Terry invented and patented. We use 14 day gong striking spring-wind movements from Germany in our reproductions. They strike the hour and mark the half hour with a single strike.
Seventeen of these clocks were made in the late 1960's by my father, James R. Carr, (before he got distracted, then retired), and I made nineteen more in 1978-79 after I returned home from several years of beach-combing in the Far East. When I got home, I entertained the thought of becoming a professional clock-maker, thinking my dad would be the senior partner in the business. But he was by then far too "retired," and no longer had any ambition to make clocks. His involvement was as sort of a quality control supervisor, but he oversaw my labors only because the shop in which I worked was also his home. It was difficult making those nineteen clocks. My dad was always stopping production so he could read me a passage out of the book he happened to be engrossed in at the time. Nonetheless, it would have made a great full time business, but I'm one of those dastardly ne'r-do-wells who can never concentrate on doing just one thing. I dabbled in farming, then publishing, then went back to my old seagoing profession, among other things.
In 1998, having moved the woodworking shop into the loft of a barn I'd just completed building, I got to looking at the boxes of clock-case parts my dad and I had made years before, and decided it would be a crime for all those parts to go to waste. There were parts for about thirty additional (partial) clock cases. I got busy and completed the parts for that many cases.
My renewed clock-building fervor was dampened somewhat when two of the first clocks completed burned in a local store where they were on display. Then the proprietor of another store where the next completed clocks were placed on consignment, died, and the store closed down. Thus far, numbers 36 through 42 have been completed — an average of one completed clock per year. All but the one I use myself has been given or traded away. Numbers 43 through 46 are languishing at the empty case stage, awaiting faces, works, and final finishing. I still go to sea, dabble at farming, attempt to write, do some computer programming, building, do some Internet web page design and publishing, etc. Just every little once in a while I force myself to work on a clock. Now you can see why I'm not in the clock business, and why our clocks are collectors' items even before the builder has died.
PRICE
(NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
Clocks (when available), may be of Roman or Arabic numeral dial faces and case styles as shown. Dial graphics vary, and usually feature floral designs. Each is an individual, and no two clock graphics are exactly alike. To give our clocks a local significance, the bottom door panel, (or "tablet," as it is called) feature scenes from our Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois (Currently scenes featured are "Old Stone Face," or "Garden of the Gods"), or may have blank tablets.
NOT AVAILABLE IN STORES ANYWHERE! Currently, these clocks (when available), are available only for local pickup or delivery.
For availability, very interested parties
please E-mail: bill@heritech.com
*A PLUG FOR THE WORTHY COMPETITION
NOTE: We used to say we made "the most accurate" Terry clock reproduction until we learned that we have some very worthy competition in the person of Patrick Terry of Warsaw, Indiana. Our claim has been called into question, and we can no longer make it in good faith, though we have never had the opportunity to inspect one of Terry's clocks. From the pictures we've seen, Terry, (whose ancestors include Eli Terry himself) makes very fine reproductions. He has the advantage of being able to call his clocks "original Terry clocks," and indeed, their appearance is striking. Check out his Terry Clocks web site and compare before you buy. Patrick Terry also produces fine grandfather clocks.
