Page 8 - SUSQUEHANNA TIMES
ardi Gras
The Columbia Jaycees
are holding a Halloween
Mardi Gras this year,
starting Wednesday, Octo-
ber 26th and ending Satur-
day, October 29th.
The high point of the
Mardi Gras will be the 30th
anniversary parade on
Thursday, starting at 7:00
PM rain or shine. 11
marching bands will play,
and Miss PA, Lynn Grote,
will appear. $400 in prizes
will be won by some lucky
persons.
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1973 MG GBT
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1973 Mercury Montego Coupe
1967 Pontiac Convertible
Ask us about
THE WORKS
our 12 month—20,000 mile used car guarantee.
PONTIAC 4 OLDSMOBILE
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Other activities of the
week will be a market
house, a haunted house,
and store window decora-
tion by local students.
Solar energy
The engineers at Capitol
Campus are holding an
energy workshop, dealing
with solar heat, on Nov.
2nd. It costs $45 and lasts
all day. Call 787-7753.
SAIS IIISLS STILTS SSS SSIS SSS SIS TS SSS
ARNOLD mwavtown, pa
1975 Olds Toronado
1975 Ford Pinto Coupe
1974 Pontiac Grand Prix
1974 Datsun Pick-up
Nationwide
“live wire” claim
service.
Anytime, any place,
24 hours a day.
When a Nationwide policyholder has an auto
insurance claim, a call on the nearest phone,
anytime day or night, gets action started. And
in most cases, within 48 hours after proof of
loss, the claim Is settled.
That's what Nationwide's “live wire” claims
service can do. And when your car's been put
out of commission, that kind of speed can
make a big difference.
Call a Nationwide agent. Ask about our “live
wire" claims service. It's an important part of
Nationwide's blanket protection for your family
or your business.
JACK TYNDALL
805 Church Street
Mount Joy, Pa.
PHONE 653-5970
NATIONWIDE-
INSURANCE
®
Nationwide is on your side
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company Home Office. Columbus. Ohio
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..more on clocks
[continued ]
curator of the museum.
(Mr. Wood had been kind
enough to send us a copy
of a book he recently co-
authored, Clockmakers af
Lancaster County and their
Clocks, and thus aroused
our editorial interest in
local horology.)
Mr. Wood took us
around the museum and
pointed out some of the
many interesting pieces in
the Association collection of
540 clocks and watches.
In addition to standard
types of grandfather and
wall clocks, there are a
variety of water clocks,
rolling ball clocks, hickory
-dickory-dock clocks,
Cuckoo clocks, Mickey
Mouse clocks, plastic and
wood clocks, an atomic
clock, a tower clock, and an
organ clock that plays
Polka music on the hour.
There's a clock for
everyone in the museum,
even a wrist watch design-
ed for racing drivers: it has
case extensions which
lodge it on the narrow part
of the wrist, near the
thumb. The driver doesn’t
have to turn his hand to
read it.
One especially strange
pendulum clock is hidden
behind a reproduction of
American Gothic. The eyes
of the farmer and his wife
roll back and forth with the
swing of the bob.
Even if you aren't inter-
ested in clock cases and
movements, you'll enjoy
this collection: There's a
clock for every taste in the
museum.
If you like high precision,
they have an atomic clock
that loses less than one
second every 3200 years.
(Strangely enough, it
doesn’t have a second
hand!)
Are you kinky? Several
‘‘Master and Slave’’ clocks
are exhibited.
Trivia freak? A Mickey
Mouse wristwatch might
amuse you.
The museum is open the
public, free of charge,
every weekday from 9:00
AM to 4:00 PM, and on
Saturdays from noon to
5:00. There are no steps,
so handicapped persons in
wheelchairs can enter
easily.
On your way in, take a
peek at the IBM System 3
computer in the front room.
It keeps track of all records
for the N.A.W.C.C. and
runs continously.
Joe Balt
On this side of Chiques
Hill, in Maytown, is Joe
Balt’s clock shop. It’s not a
museum, but it could
qualify as one.
Joe Balt isn’t just a clock
repairman: he’s also a
photographer, author, and
historian.
Joe is working on a book
now which he hopes will
tell the public how to iden-
tify genuine antique clocks.
‘“Many people put out
good money for an ‘an-
tique’ clock,’”’ Joe told us,
‘‘and years later learn it
was a fake.”
To illustrate his book,
Joe takes photos of clock
movements in a tiny table
-top studio set up in the
back of his shop. The
set-up creates just the
right diffuse lighting need-
ed to shoot clock works
with their shiny surfaces.
Along a shelf in the
darkroom is a row of old
cameras, another of Joe's
many interests. Many of
them are made of wood.
When the Times visited
him, Joe spoke at length
about early clockmakers in
Donegal. There were sever-
al in Maytown and one in
Mount Joy in the first
decades of the 19th
Century.
“The introduction of
mass production equipment
killed off hand-made
clocks,’ he explained.
By 1850 grandfather
clocks were crowded out of
the market by factory-made
New England shelf clocks.
Hand-made clocks had
been a luxury available to
the wealthy, but shelf
clocks were cheap enough
to be bought by anyone.
“Joe Balt in his shop
One manufacturer of this
period decided to make
clocks even cheaper by
using wood for the works
as well as the cases. Joe
Balt owns one of these.
Joe showed us another
clock with a globe instead
of a face, and told us that
the inventor of this type
thought he had made the
ordinary clock face with
hands ‘‘obsolete.”” Only a
few were ever made.
While hand-made clocks
are long gone in most
places, they live on in Joe's
shop. Besides repairs, Joe
occasionally makes a com-
plete set of works for
someone. ‘‘Some people
are willing to pay the price
to have an American-made
clock works in their antique
case,”’ he says.
It takes about one month
to make a clock works
(which does not include the
dial). Joe proceeds in much
the manner of the early
makers, first calculating
and making oversize draw-
ings on a drawing board,
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Jane Reisinger with ju.i a few of her clocks in Pendulum 1776
October 26, 1977
then cutting all the gears
on a special machine, and
finally finishing and assem-
bling. His equipment is
faster, but not different in
principle from the old
machines.
After learning how much
some of the pieces in his
shop are worth, we asked
Joe if he isn’t afraid of
being robbed.
‘See that TV camera up
there on the wall?’’ he
as’ =d. ‘*That’s a motion
detector. If you moved your
finger it would set off an
alarm and automatically
call the police, if it was
switched on.”
Pendulum 1776
A good place to browse
for old clocks in at
Pendulum 1776 on Locust
Street in Columbia. Pro-
prietor Jane Reisinger told
us that about 25% of her
merchandise consists of old
clocks (the rest is antiques
and collectibles).
Jane’s husband, Clar-
ence, repairs clocks. He
taught himself this skill
because he wanted to save
money.
Jane has so many clocks,
she doesn’t even know how
many are in the store. “‘I'd
guess between 100 and
200,’’ she told us.
Hostetter wins
flower show
Lester Hostetter, of 315
N. Barbara St., Mount Joy,
took the top prize at the
Fall Flower Show, sponsor-
ed by the Men's Graden
Club of Lancaster, last
Sunday.
Mr. Hostetter’s crysan-
themum, Enchantment,
won him the award.
Enchantment is an orchid
-pink spider variety.
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