Chess clock thread

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JustinHorton
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Chess clock thread

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Aug 05, 2015 5:53 pm

Ever have one of these?

Image
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Aug 05, 2015 5:57 pm

They were common equipment forty to fifty years ago. The German BHB clocks and equivalents are the ones that are still in use today. BH Wood's converted alarm clocks (or at least that's what they look like) mostly gave up the ghost or were insufficiently reliable for club and Congress use.

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:05 pm

Our club still has one :)

Don't think it has actually been used for a while though.
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JustinHorton
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:09 pm

I'm having a house clearout and came across it earlier today. There is no chance of it ever working again.
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John Saunders
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by John Saunders » Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:05 pm

I always rather liked the even older generation of Chess (Sutton Coldfield) clocks...

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According to the page where I found the image, these were made between 1937 and 1948. At a guess, EJH's one up the page dates from the 1950s or early 1960s as the design had been tweaked slightly by the late 1960s and early 1970s, thus...

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I still have one of these...

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... which still seems to tick cheerfully, though I wouldn't like to say for how long. It's a German* MOM 'Jaeger' clock, probably late 1950s or early 1960s. It has lasted longer than the club which owned it (Mitcham) and was probably being used right up to 1999, when the club closed. * EDIT: probably Hungarian rather than German, according to Bernard Cafferty, who thinks this type of clock entered the country around 1948.
Last edited by John Saunders on Thu Aug 06, 2015 8:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Wed Aug 05, 2015 9:03 pm

Harrogate had a few which we sold off to members about twenty years ago. I bought one and I may still have it somewhere.
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Reg Clucas
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by Reg Clucas » Thu Aug 06, 2015 12:27 pm

I remember them. One advantage they have over modern (or should I say less ancient) clocks is that the position of the start/stop bar made things awkward for that abominable species the clock-banger!

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Aug 08, 2015 1:31 pm

clock.pdf
Hope this works - I'm not used to adding attachments here.
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Martin Benjamin
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by Martin Benjamin » Sat Aug 08, 2015 4:55 pm

Sadly, the Metroplitan Police Chess Club has had to abandon a wonderful collection of old clocks of the types above and others which were even more eccentric to the modern eye, because of the Met moving out of New Scotland Yard. I suspect they have all gone to landfill by now. I had wondered if they would be of interest to a collector, but I could not find anyone.

Barry Sandercock
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Re: Chess clock thread

Post by Barry Sandercock » Sat Aug 08, 2015 7:27 pm

I have one of the Sutton Coldfield ones, still in working order, although it is very seldom used these days.