Demand growing for beautiful timepieces

Time is relative, according to Einstein. And the rate at which is passes depends on your frame of reference.

At Herman Lamprecht’s Reliable Clocks shop in Benoni, time stands still, it tick-tocks and it gongs. And he is in love with his timekeepers.

It started off as a hobby for the former avionics engineer over two decades ago when he inherited a broken grandfather clock.

“It stood around not working for years, and then one Saturday afternoon I walked past it and decided maybe I can fix it.”

The bug bit after tinkering with the mechanisms of time, and he started scouring social media and marketplaces for more, old banged-up clocks to fix.

Soon family and friends, and even total strangers started ringing him up to fix their heirlooms. It eventually became a viable business.

From his premises in a quaint Benoni shopping village, Lamprecht plies his trade. His son Tiaan soon joined him and another staffer, Bianca, also fell in love with time and its machines.

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Lamprecht knows each clock in his store intimately. There are grandfather clocks, desktop clocks, wall clocks and two historic pieces – each with stories to share.

“These are works of art, they are more than just clocks, each one is as valuable and as delicately crafted as any other work of art,” he said.

The one-piece used to be the old clock of the Port Elizabeth town hall. It dates to the 17th century. Yet, it is origin is unclear.

Lamprecht said the only indication of where it may have come from is the Walnut wood used to make it, pointing to North America or Germany.

The Town Hall Clock’s mechanism looks slightly different to all the other uprights in a row. It does not have the large dingdong.

Instead, Lamprecht said the design was based on the same technical spec as London’s Big Ben and other large clock towers in Europe.

“Before the days of cellphones and wrist watches, each quarter of an hour had a specific gong sound to it.

“That meant that without having to wear a watch, anyone would have a reasonable idea of what time of day it was, by listening to the change in tone.”

A few paces on, there is another ancient beauty. It is also several hundred years old but looks in near-mint condition.

It is a windup, weight-based mechanism and there are not two hands on the clock face, only one. And on closer inspection, the demarcations are in quarters between the hours.

Lamprecht said the hour-to-hour clock was made in Newcastle in the UK around 350 years ago.

“By the time that London’s streets started getting electrified streetlights in 1878, this clock was already two centuries old. It has never been modified, repaired or adjusted. It works perfectly,” he said.

Clocks in this kind of mint condition could easily top R500 000 on the antiques market. There is also the take of the long-service award clock.

It was gifted to an employee of General Motors in Port Elizabeth in 1972. When he passed on, the clock became the subject of an inheritance tussle between his two daughters.

It ended up with one of them, whose daughter in turn took ownership years later. She brought it to Lamprecht to repair.

Then, a while later – the clock now in good nick and waiting for collection – a stranger saw it and burst into tears.

It turned out she was the daughter of the sister who did not end up with the clock, and seeing it caused a rush of emotions.

Scanning the rest of the shop, there are mantle clocks from the 40s, 50s and 60s. There is an old turntable spinning vinyl classics all day long among the tick-tocking of a legion of clocks.

It can be somewhat overwhelming, but Lamprecht said he does not even hear it anymore. No chance of a million chimes driving anyone crazy.

“It’s like the traffic, after a while you don’t hear it anymore,” he said.

There are also some newer looking clocks. Unbelievably, there are craftsmen making new, modern versions of the classics that Lamprecht loves so much.

Demand is growing for beautiful timepieces. There are a handful in his shop, and they are made outside Cape Town.

To Lamprecht, though, Reliable Clocks is not about profit. It is about passion. Yes, there is the bit about putting food on the table, but the bigger picture is what he lives for.

Time and its machines.

“We are doing it for the love of the work, preserving something. After all, this is art. I mean, it’s flipping beautiful, you know?”