A truly outstanding book has been published and is now available for
those of us who love musical clocks compounded by whimsy and somewhat
outlandish trips of fancy to a world occupied by gnomes, provincial
tradesmen, eagles, cuckoo birds, foxes, and other things that roam the
woods and go bump in the night.  Also, clocks of sophistication and
elegance round out the picture.

It all happened in the Black Forest of southwest Germany, in an area
less than 2000 square miles and in the timeframe of about 1750 to
1900.  For years many of us have been intrigued by cuckoo clocks but
never realized the complexity, variety, and complication of these and
related clocks of the Black Forest.

Publications in German by such authors as Berthold, Schaaf, Bender,
and others were generally used by those who understood the language or
who poured over them for what could be learned from pictures and with
a dictionary in hand.  Karl Kochman tried simple publications on the
subject of cuckoo clocks in English and Rick Ortenburger continued
forward with a quite sophisticated book on a variety of Black Forest
clocks nearly twenty years ago, also in English.

What we have now is a new release that eclipses previous works, not
just in English, but, as Fortunat Muller-Maerki of the NAWCC book
review panel said:

  "Rare and Unusual Black Forest Clocks" fills a big void in the
  English language horological literature.  There really is not much
  else out there on the subject.  That alone makes the book very
  useful; beyond that, the book is very good because the author is
  knowledgeable, has been conscientious in his research and has secured
  the help of the top experts in the field.  But what made the book
  such a pleasure to read is that these rare 'Schwarzwalduhren' are
  such enjoyable horological historic objects to study and to look at,
  and thus the book is likely to appeal to many clock collectors
  beyond those specializing in its rather specific subject matter.

What I wish to say is this book is not narrowly a clock book but
rather (using the term loosely) a book on musical clocks.  That is,
clocks that crow like a rooster, sing like a song bird, play trumpets
like a military bugler, play a harp, a zither, hoot like an owl -- you
name it, some talented Black Forest genius created it.  Justin Miller
not only describes it, pictures it with photographs and copies of
original drawings and catalog pictures, but he also delves into family
involvement's and histories that comprise this cottage industry and
made it possible to produce the clocks.

Kudos to Justin Miller and his monumental work, "Rare and Unusual
Black Forest Clocks," sporting over 650 color photographs, 1000
illustrations, 304 pages.  Here is a link to the site, which provides
details on the book, including the Table of Contents and several
sample pages:  http://blackforestclocks.org/book/ 

To complete the review, Muller-Maerki states, "Justin Miller, an
American collector and aficionado of rare and unusual Black Forest
clock, has now created what unquestionably is the most thorough and
comprehensive book on the subject that exists in any language."

Bill Maier