This is probably my best bicycle
piece in my collection. I saw
this clock in an antiques store about 15 miles from where I live.
I knew it was a great piece, and it was only $300.00, and I didn't
buy it. Can you imagine? I finally decided I'd get it and put it
on eBay and make a couple bucks. So...I bought it, got it home and
couldn't bare to part with it! I really like the pillbox hat! This
clock is English. On the back It's marked " PATd IN GREAT BRITAIN AND
FRANCE - MANFd BY THE BRITISH U NITED
CLOCK COMPANY - BIRMINGHAM ENGLAND. I have a book on
antique European football display pieces. It's the mother of
all books on the subject. In it is a photo of a Euro football
clock that has the exact same look and base as this, obviously by the
same maker. The English have always been so proud of their sports! When
I got it, the store told me it worked, but needed cleaning.
I've been planning on getting it cleaned and running since I got
it a couple years ago, back around 2003. A guy I know,
Nile Godfrey of Classical Clocks & Antiques in Livermore
California said he could service it. Nile often sets up at the
Alameda Point Antiques Fair in Alameda. I drug this clock all the
way down there once, and he wasn't there...hurt his back moving a
clock I think it was. I've never gotten around to getting it to
him since. When
I drove it down there, the vibration made it start running for a
while, and it made a great ticking sound! Mark Cooper, the big baseball collector
from Pennsylvania, once described the ticking sound his 1870's Muller
Baseball clock makes in his living room. I've got to get this
bicycle clock fixed so I'll have a cool clock ticking sound in my living room
too. I emailed a photo of this clock to Pryor Dodge,
and he'd never seen it. Pryor is like the Barry Halper of bicycle
collecting, I think. There was a killer highwheeler bicycle clock
that sold in the Political Gallery Auction in Indianapolis, a couple years
ago. That clock was even nicer than mine. Can't remember what it
brought. Once
, many many years ago, I was at the PMA antiques show in San Mateo
California. I walking thru the show and overheard two guys talking that Prince Charles collected bicycle antiques. I asked
them about it, and one of them said His Highness was an aggressive collector, and it was easy to
sell him stuff. I tried a couple times to broker things to him,
but only got nice written replies. One was a heck of a cast iron
umbrella stand I found at the Fall Antiques Show in San Francisco
. I
thought for sure he'd buy it, but no luck! Speaking
of bicycle pieces, I'll mention one of the greatest tins I've ever
seen. Last summer I went to Cleveland to cover the 2004 National
Sports Collectors Convention. I came a week or so early and rented
a car and drove 7 hours to Adamstown Pennsylvania. For years I'd
heard all the talk about Adamstown, that it was such a hot
bed of antiques. The Black Angus antiques market is there and so
is Renningers Market. Plus the town is full of antiques stores. It
wasn't as strong as I'd hoped for, but I saw a few pretty good
sports items. There was a store called South Point Antiques that
had an incredible c1880 sperm oil tin with an illustration of a
bicycle rider coming thru the middle of the spokes of a huge
bicycle wheel. The tin was that archaic mustard yellow color with
black printing. It was about the size of a coke can. Picture the
size of a coke can with a small screw top lid. Even though it was
only two colors, it stopped me in my tracks. Naturally, it was
priced at full bore, as far as I was concerned...$1,200.00. And I
actually considered it. If it had been $600.00, or even
maybe $800.00...that baby'd been coming home with me! But I'm not
Bill Gates, and I was headed to the National, and just couldn't
see it. When I think about it now, $1,200.00 doesn't seem so bad,
it was that strong! I
tried like heck to get the store clerk to let me take a photo, I
think she was the owner of the store. She was nice, but would not
allow me. I was pulling out my card, and explaining I was a
journalist that specialized in sports antiques, and so on, but no
luck. It turned out she even knew a friend of mine Jerry Director,
and still wouldn't budge. I could understand where she was coming
from though. She had a responsibility to the dealer that owned it,
and she maintained it. I
did another short story on a bicycle piece that you can read by
clicking here. And while one on the
subject of clocks, I did another clock story you can read by
clicking here. 
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