[ Ref. Mark Kinsler in 231105 MMDigest ]

I wonder where the owner got the notion that this is a prayer clock.
As we know, all manner of tales get applied to objects that have been
passed down in a family, or are reiterated by a seller because someone
came along and told them (right or wrong) that such and such an item
is a such and such.

One thought is that a group of animated figures that are often part of
this type of clock are sometimes flanked by a pair of angels. I have
one such in my shop at this time.

The only one of the images I was able to view was the music drum photo.
This is an early- to mid-1800s Black Forest Germany "organ clock",
sometimes called a flute clock. (The other images failed to open because
they had errors, or at least this is what my web browser told me.)

 [ The problem lies with the 'plus sign' in the filenames, but only in
 [ emails. Fortunately, the links work okay at the MMD web page; see
 [ https://www.mmdigest.com/archives/Digests/202311/2023.11.05.01.html 

The restoration often involves at least five parts:

1) Pneumatic -- Valve body seals, bellows, relief valve calibration
etc, similar to hand-played (non-automatic) wind-powered instruments of
the era;

2) Mechanical -- Cylinder drive wheel train and governor, cylinder tune
selector cam and repeat mechanism, cylinder pins, rocker pins and wires,
etc.;

3) Pipe voicing -- with repairs to pipe bodies and wind diverters as
needed;

4) Figure mechanisms -- (these clocks typically had from three to seven
moving figures, often with subsidiary animations);

5) Clock rebuilding -- The clock movement itself, which keeps time,
rings the bell and triggers the music cylinder to rotate on the hour
(not visible in the sole image I was able to view) should be
a conventional posted-frame, wood, brass and steel Black Forest unit,
typical of just about any conventional Black Forest tall-case clock
(most folks would call it a Grandfather clock).

Naturally, the above is a summary of the main component groups. Within
these are a large number of additional individual parts.

As one can imagine, and no surprise to this group, the total hours on
such a project can be enormous. From a cost point of view, the owners
best bet would be to obtain the services of a retired or semi-retired
craftsperson who would be willing to donate some of the time required
to restore this clock instrument, though we also know that such people
are in increasingly short supply. I wish them luck in this quest.

Andrew Baron - Alpine Clock Repair, LLC
Santa Fe, New Mexico
https://alpineclockrepair.com/