Cuckoo Clock Homepage

Question: Who first thought of a cuckoo clock and why not any other bird but cuckoo?

(Posted by: King of Hearts on 2006-11-09 22:42:16)

Posted by: shoblya on 2006-11-09, 22:50:45

Wikipedia: Cuckoo clock [cuckoo clock] ... The design of a cuckoo clock is now conventional. ... product, the origin of the cuckoo clock has never been conclusively established. ... Quick Links: Characteristics - History - Evolution of design en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Cuckoo_clock - 24k - Cached - More from this site CuckooClock.de Offers a large selection of handmade clocks from the Black Forest. Category: Germany > Sales and Dealers > Cuckoo Clocks cuckooclock.de

Posted by: steve3579@sbcglobal.net on 2006-11-09, 22:59:58

Well that would be simply, cuckoo.!! I AM

Posted by: jayaraman on 2006-11-09, 23:14:32

A cuckoo clock is a clock, typically pendulum driven, that strikes the hours using small bellows and whistles that imitate the call of the Common Cuckoo in addition to striking a wire gong. The mechanism to produce the cuckoo call was installed in almost every kind of cuckoo clock since the middle of the eighteenth century and has remained almost without variation until the present. The sound comming from the clock should be pleasent and should coincide with the bird. Cockoo's sound is good and the bird also novel. So Cockoo was taken, The design of a cuckoo clock is now conventional. Most are made in the shape of a rustic birdhouse or chalet to hang on a wall. The wooden case is frequently decorated with carved leaves and animal heads. Most now have an automaton of the bird that appears through a small trap door while the clock is striking. The bird is often made to move while the clock strikes, typically by means of an arm that lifts the back of the carving. There are two kind of movement: a one-day movement and an eight-day movement. Some have musical movements, and play a tune on a swiss music box after striking the hours and/ or half-hours. Musical cuckoo clocks frequently have other automata which move when the music box plays. Cuckoo clocks are almost always weight driven; a very few are spring driven. The weights are made of cast iron in a pine cone shape. [edit] The first cuckoo clocks In 1629 an Augsburg nobleman by the name of Philipp Hainhofer (1578-1647) penned the first known description of a cuckoo clock. The clock belonged to Prince Elector August von Sachsen. In a widely known handbook on music Musurgia Universalis (1650), the scholar Athanasius Kircher describes a mechanical organ with several automated figures, including a mechanical cuckoo. The bird automatically opens its beak and moves both wings and tail. Simultaneously, we hear the call of the cuckoo, created by two organ pipes, tuned to a minor or major third. In 1669 Domenico Martinelli, in his Handbook on elementary clocks Horologi Elementari (1669), suggests using the call of the cuckoo to indicate the hours. Starting at that time the mechanism of the cuckoo clock was known. Any mechanic or clockmaker, who could read Latin or Italian, knew after reading the books that it was quite doable to have the cuckoo announce the hours-

Posted by: nglsh_mm on 2006-11-10, 01:39:04

The Cuckoo Clock originates from the Black Forest in Germany, the reason for choosing the Cuckoo is simple, his call was more suited for a clock, then chirping that can be hardly heard.

Posted by: John B on 2006-11-16, 16:41:21

Well it was going to be a dodo clock but they run out of wood

Posted by: pyrotic_freak714 on 2006-11-17, 05:05:28

It came from Germany, where almost all wooden clocks like that are made, or were made at one time.

Posted by: puertoricanprince2 on 2006-11-17, 19:49:18

I heard that way back ago instead of clocks they would have birds like roosters to wake them up so one day noone woke up becauase all the roosters fell off there roof spots so one wise man got a cukoo bird and stuck it in a cage at the top of the kings castle and well there u go