Category Archives: Old Things

Find of the Week – 1890s Württemberg Uhrenfabrik clock

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I’m always thrilled to find truly old things at thrift stores. This clock was instantly recognizable as being a true antique when I found it on a shelf with a motley assortment of quartz wall clocks and electric clock-radios at the Goodwill on SE Grand. It was priced at $8, ‘as is’. I greedily snatched it up and took it home, feeling like a thief after I checked out and paid the token price.

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The only writing on the case is a fragment of a label on the back, with some handwriting in pencil. It looks like…

Ba(l|b)(y|g|s)
Shar(p|f)(unk.)(u w/ umlaut|i)(d|2)
June 22, 189(7|9)
E?&(l|b)(unk.)

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On first glance I was worried the movement was incomplete because of all of the vacant screw holes. I think the frame is actually provisioned for a few different variations of the mechanism though, maybe some kind of date display thing because of the ‘window’ in the front plate?

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The movement has a few makers markings. ‘Württemberg Uhrenfabrik’ and a stylized ‘WUS’ logo with the text ‘Bürk’ beneath. Based on similar logos found in Mikrolisk’s [1] database I think this movement was made by Württembergische Uhrenfabrik Bürk Söhne [2].

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Output shaft and the geartrain for setting the clock.

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Backside of the dust cover. Hand formed and soldered modification to make the ‘sealed’ area smaller.

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Also interesting is a bit of text visible on the piece used in modifying the dust cover.

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The hands are two pieces soldered together as well.

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Another dust cover strip on the side removed reveals the rest of the movement.

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The spring was wound absurdly tightly already, I gave it a bit of a crank not knowing this and am probably lucky I didn’t break it. I gave the balance wheel a bit of a shove and it actually started right up… It’s been running for two days now. Kinda want it to stop so I can leave it be and avoid putting any more wear on the parts.

I have a feeling the case is not original, though it’s clearly quite old. Not sure how I’d go about further tracing that aspect of it.

[1]: http://www.mikrolisk.de/show.php?site=280&suchwort=W%C3%BCrttembergische&searchWhere=all#sucheMarker

[2]: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrttembergische_Uhrenfabrik_B%C3%BCrk

On the Street – Model A + Bug Truck

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The sun has people bringing out their fair weather transportation. Here’s a few sightings from the opening days of Spring.

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This Volkswagen Beetle pickup is definitely not a factory job (in fact there doesn’t seem to have ever been a mass produced pickup variant). This conversion is a little bit rough cut but I like that whoever performed it incorporated the rear quarter and fender rather than lopping it all off to allow for a slightly wider cargo area.

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Nicely restored Ford Model A parked outside Bridgeport. Early Fords are relatively common and not a personal favorite of mine, but anything this old being street driven is pretty cool.

Radical joystickectomy

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This is a relatively minor repair but I thought I’d put a post up about it because of the parts involved. The Do Run Run I got this weekend came fitted with really cruddy quality components. One piece buttons that aren’t serviceable and a joystick set up with some really crummy switches. I also found it suffered from disintegrating microswitch syndrome, as the Frogger player 1 stick did.

The Mr. Do on the other hand had relatively nice hardware, if a bit weathered. All leaf switch stuff, which is preferable for many older games. I spent a couple hours today carefully desoldering the joystick and buttons from the Mr. Do harness and transferring them over. The joystick ended up being a bit of a rare bird. Here it is disassembled:

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It’s a Monroe Electronics model (they’re still in business, but no longer apparently making anything video game related). Has some interesting characteristics, most notably that it uses an all metal ball joint instead of the usual rubber bushing thing. Once I polished off the built up rust and oiled it it actually took on a very smooth movement.

It also happens to be the correct model for games such as Gyruss, Rampage, and Time Pilot. Used prices seem to be in the neighborhood of $20-50 depending on condition, and the NOS examples that pop up from time to time go for $50-100. I was a little surprised to find it was worth more than the entire cabinet it came in.

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It helped out Do Run Run a lot, no longer sticks left and kills you at random :P Unfortunately the power supply gave up the ghost while I was testing and my spare seems to have issues too. I’m picking up a new one tomorrow but the sudden failure put a damper on things.

Also managed to find this (cropped from an ebay listing for a NOS stick: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Monroe-Joystick-NOS-for-Video-Arcade-Game-New-Old-Stock-Gyruss-Rampage-/310565134161) original instruction insert for the stick in question.

mr2

Might be useful for anyone looking for the correct way to put one of these things back together.