Clock collection marks history, craftsmanship

Club president also restores old timepieces

By CATHY REDFERN - Staff Writer | Thursday, April 3, 2008 9:46 PM PDT ∞

WILDOMAR ---- Ah, the things time reveals.

When Jim Glidewell was 18, he worked on minute, mechanical aircraft instruments. Now, at 73, the retired engineer looks back and sees that as one of several experiences that prepared him for his passion of restoring and collecting clocks.

And what a passion it is.

Glidewell, president of the Sun City-based Riverside County Clock & Watch Club, estimates that he and his wife, Elsa, have 200 clocks in their Wildomar home, most of them antiques. They have skeleton clocks, compound-pendulum clocks, statue clocks, prayer clocks, small clocks in cases to protect them during carriage rides, a rare trumpeter cuckoo clock, box clocks, mantel clocks and many more.

It takes two to three hours for the "standard tour" of the collection, Glidewell said, and several moments for visitors to get accustomed to the cacophony of the various chimes, cuckoos and ticktocks, set at different times for sound-appreciation purposes.

And each clock comes with a story, a history, Glidewell said.

The oldest was built in the late 1700s, a stately Scottish-made grandfather clock about 6 feet tall, with iron weights that work with gravity to supply the impetus to keep it ticking.

One is a coin-operated mantel clock used in French hotels in the 1950s that cost guests two francs per day to use, he said. Glidewell gets a kick out of that one, he said, because he discovered about $10 worth of quarters in it after he bought it.

He admires the accuracy of the gimbal-equipped clock built by Hamilton Watch Co., of Lancaster, Penn., that was used on ships during World War II.

The couple has a Seth Thomas clock that plays an eight-bell melody every 15 minutes, and contains a second movement, or basic set of mechanisms, to move the bells. And they own a New Haven clock that is similar but has steel chimes that produce a deeper sound than the bells.

But Glidewell's favorites are French-made statue clocks, he said, because he admires the craftsmanship that marks many of those pieces from the 1800s and 1900s. He showed a visitor one that has a candleholder with a second clock face on it allowing people to read the time at night, before the days of electricity.

"Some people don't think much of clocks," he said. "But there is a lot more to some clocks than one may realize. Really, they are pieces of art, history and mechanical marvel, what the people were able to do in those times, with no machinery."

Even a less rare clock elicits a bit of history, as Glidewell says glass-domed clocks were used to keep coal residue and dirt out of clocks in earlier, less hygienic times. An elaborate, wood-carved, gold-plated clock elicits a comment about how Italians can "really get carried away."

Glidewell also restores clocks and teaches a monthly workshop for the clock and watch club, which was formed 23 years ago in Sun City. The 35 club members hold an annual clock and watch swap meet, but the Glidewells go farther, traveling to regional and national "marts" to sell and buy clocks.

They paid from $50 to $12,000 for each clock in their collection, he said, and though the clocks appreciate in value, the hobby can become too expensive for those who cannot also repair them.

Fellow club member Leon Guzik of Murrieta, a collector of railroad-grade pocket watches ---- a term stemming from an Ohio train wreck in the 1890s caused by a faulty watch ---- said Glidewell's collection is impressive even to insiders.

"He has a whole house full that would put museums to shame," he said.

Glidewell is more modest in his description, but admits he has been in museums and seen models of clocks he has at home.

He said his whole clock crusade started when he was about 32, when he worked for an American contractor in Germany and his co-workers expected him to go out drinking with them every night. When he found an old German box clock in Belgium, its restoration became his excuse to avoid the drinking bouts, he said.

"I made sure I had something to do," he said. "I love the mechanical part, and the searching and finding of the clocks. It's not just the having of them."

Clock "marts" and other events are now a large part of the couple's social life, he said, and they are partners in the enterprise. They also volunteer at a food bank at Murrieta United Methodist Church, said Elsa Glidewell, who has learned more than she ever thought she would know about clocks and has her own collection of miniature clocks.

She laughs and says most times her husband is found tinkering in his clock workshop, or putting clock presentations on PowerPoint displays, or reading about the history of a certain clock, or some other related activity.

"He's surrounded by time and doesn't have enough time to do all he wants with clocks," she said.

Jim Glidewell agrees, saying he has never been one to be idle. He says he has just started making his first clock, but knows it will be a work in progress.

Yet, he recalls how things have come together for him in the past in unexpected ways. Years ago, when he was a married father working full time and trying to earn a degree, but failing in calculus, he had a chance meeting in a German hotel with the author of the calculus textbook he was struggling through. He had helped the man's daughter that morning, giving her a ride to school, he said. With her father's help, he passed the course.

"Life is guided," he said.

Contact staff writer Cathy Redfern at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2621, or credfern@californian.com.