Art Deco Westminster Chiming Mantel Clock Family Provenance'Betsy

Art Deco Chiming Mantel Clock. Known affectionately as "Betsy", this is a charming vintage Art Deco mantel clock with a 5-rod chiming movement, compact proportions, and a remarkable family story behind it. With its simple arched case, silvered dial detail and warm period look, Betsy is an attractive decorative piece in her own right. She is also marked FOREIGN, indicating an imported movement and suggesting she was most likely German-made for the British market. I have not carried out restoration or mechanical servicing work to the movement myself, but I have personally bench tested it for 7 days to confirm running and timekeeping.

It is offered as a working used example and includes its winding key. Vintage Art Deco mantel clock. Marked FOREIGN, likely German-made for the British market.

Bench tested for 7 days to confirm running and timekeeping. Passed down through the same family for decades. Known affectionately as "Betsy" by the previous owner's family. Family story links the clock to the aftermath of the Clydebank Blitz in March 1941.

Retains a period repair label dated 1951 inside the case. According to the previous owner, serviced again approximately 2 to 3 years ago. Full family account reproduced lower down exactly as received.

Used vintage mantel clock with age-related wear and character consistent with age. No restoration or servicing work has been carried out by me. According to the previous owner, Betsy was serviced approximately 2 to 3 years ago by Mike McCreery of ClockWise, Newton Mearns, Glasgow. No paperwork is included with the clock. I have personally bench tested the clock for 7 days to confirm running and timekeeping. Width: 29 cm (11.4 inches) Depth: 11 cm (4.3 inches) Height: 22 cm (8.7 inches). The following family history was provided by the previous owner and is reproduced below exactly as received. Betsy We've never been sure when Betsy was first created or where, but she is an amazing wee clock. My great-grandfather, on my father's side, was an air-raid warden in Clydebank, Scotland, during WWII. In the early hours of the 14th March 1941, after a terrible night of bombing, my great-grandfather was on his way home. Many properties were bomb-damaged and it wasn't an easy walk home. As he walked along one street he saw what had been a clock shop. There wasn't much left of it, mostly rubble and smoke but at the back against the remains of the back wall of the shop, a mantle clock was sitting on a table and as he passed it chimed 7am. My great-grandfather was amazed that the clock and the table it was on had survived, and he felt that the clock was calling to him. He asked around and discovered that the man who owned the shop had died in the bombing and so, rightly or wrongly, he went back to the remains of the shop, picked up the clock which was still there, and took it home.

He cleaned up the clock as best he could and physically blew the dust out from inside it. The clock sat on his mantle and kept very good time. In 1956 he got it serviced and cleaned and the clock remained in the family.

My gran inherited it and when she died it came to me. I thought I'd had the clock for about twenty years but the truth is I've had it for almost forty years. In 2023, something inside the clock broke and it started chiming 40, 45 and 59 times. It continued, thereafter, to work perfectly until I moved to the west coast of Scotland in retirement. Perhaps being back in the west reminded her of Clydebank. I don't know but she just wouldn't work properly and so I made the decision to change her for a mantle clock that didn't chime every fifteen minutes. I miss her but I'm hoping someone will give her the love she's had over the past eighty years in our family.

Carefully presented vintage clocks from Mahn & Co, Norwich, England.