Dating Kienzle Movement

[Patricia Jones]

Hi all:
Could someone please help me date a Kienzle bracket clock. The movement has the winged wheel emblem and the number 22. The gong is signed by Kienzle and has a scene embossed on it.
Someone had painted over the dark wooden case and I need to remove the paint and preserve the original finish, if possible. Any suggestions on the procedure to follow?
By the way, the clock is working beautifully.
Pattye

 

[harold bain]

Hi, Pattye. Other than by case style, there is no database that I know of for Kienzle. Stripping the case is trial and error usually. I had a German box clock that had been painted black. I was able to scrape the paint off, and put a couple of coats of shellac on the original finish. It turned out great. Another painted clock I had was an American gingerbread. There was not enough left of the original finish to salvage anything. I used a combination of scraping and paint remover to strip it, then shellaced it.
It's usually a lot of work, but worth it if you like the clock.

 

[Patricia Jones]

Thanks Harold,
I bought a product called Ready Strip today. It is supposed to be mild. I tried the furniture masque but it just cleaned up the paint.
If I can soften the paint, I think I can manually remove it. That would be my preference in case the finish underneath is salvagable.
As to the dating of the clock, I read somewhere that the Keinzle logo with wings dates from the late 1800's but I have also seen some advertised from the 20's and 30's. I wish there was a serial number but the number 22 is all I can find.
Again, thanks for your reply.
Pattye

 

[zepernick]

Greetings Pattye --

Before a specific comment on that trademark, a general (pre-coffee, sorry) observation:

As Harold has noted, the present problem with dating clocks from Kienzle (or Schlenker-Kienzle etc.) is that there's no considered body of data available. This would be a base that includes various movement designations, sets of catalogues across the years, derived serial number-by-years tables, and so on. It would support information good enough so we would know, for instance, exactly when Kienzle first used rod gongs (not just "after Obergfell in 1899").

Yet this is the same problem we have with *most* other of even the largest German firms, whether Junghans or Mauthe or Kienzle.

To set up such a base would require that someone, or more likely someones -- would adopt the firm and make it their earnest and constant business to gather together every bit of information about the firm and its products. To put together a photo and data bank based upon hundreds of examples, as for example "our" Steve Green (hi Steve!) is doing for Lenzkirch. Or what John Hubby is doing for Becker.

Yet until then....

More specifically (post-coffee, sun coming up ):

Dating Kienzle clocks using "registered by" information -- especially information contained in the Trademark Index is an inexact affair. The main reason is that we know that some of the information in the Index is inaccurate. That it's creaky-hard for some people to accept that this is so doesn't change the fact that it is.

Here's an example we've used in some presentations:

Shown below is a record that I found in a German journal of the time showing that this Kienzle trademark had been registered in 1892. And until 1894, all trademarks were registered -- as this one was -- at the appropriate "local" court (for K, Rottweil).

Also is an entry from the Trademark Index giving 1898 as the registered date for the trademark shown. The Index shows another variant as 1908. So that Index reference might well indicate to someone with that first trademark on a clock that it was "after 1898" at the earliest.

BUT because that 1898 date was in the Index, edition after edition, it's been picked up in other references, repeated again and again, "sold" through websites, and...so it goes.

 

[Patricia Jones]

Thanks so much for the information, Zepernich. I believe the trademark on my clock resembles the 1892 one, rather than the 1898 one. I can't distinguish any numbers on the trademark.
How long do you suppose the 1892 design was used?
Again,
I really appreciate your response
Pattye

 

[zepernick]

Hello again Pattye --

Sorry, but I don't know how long any of the Kienzle marks were used, or if they overlapped in time, or when they came and went and in what variations, etc. Nor am I aware of anyone who has actually established this.

However, some people have just assumed that, say, the "1892" variation was replaced by the 1898 in 1898. But of course assuming and checking are two different things. In fact, a quick look at an ad from Kienzle in the 1904 Adreßbuch (the second one shown, below) shows that the 1892 mark was still being used then.

Similarly, if you start comparing marks, there's the question of whether differences reflected changes over time in design, and therefore could be used in dating. Or were just here-and-there and now-and-then variations. For instance, the other ad below, from 1913, shows a trademark that has small differences from the one shown above in the Trademark Index.