Clock peddler: the incredible saga of the Black Forest merchants
They crossed Europe on foot, a pack basket loaded with clocks on their backs. Without them, Black Forest clocks would never have travelled so far. The clock peddlers are the unsung heroes of the finest adventure in German clockmaking, and their umbrella-carrying silhouette still watches over our cuckoo clocks today.
Who were the clock peddlers?
In German, they are called Uhrenträger, the “clock carriers”. These merchants set out on foot from the Black Forest to sell the clocks made in the region’s farmhouses, from village to village and from market to market.
The secret was on their backs: a wooden pack frame to which they strapped their clocks. A true walking shop window, carried for hundreds of kilometres. The Deutsches Uhrenmuseum in Furtwangen holds one of these frames: it stands 90 cm high and 44.5 cm wide.
From glass carriers to the roads of Europe
Before clocks, there was glass. Glass carriers were already travelling the roads to sell Black Forest glassware. Around 1740, the first clock merchants took over their routes and organised themselves into trading companies, with depots from which the peddlers set out.
Their clocks then reached France, England, Holland, Italy and Spain, and some journeys lasted up to a year. Today, manufacturers such as Hönes and Engstler carry on this craft in the Black Forest.
The peddler, a Black Forest icon
In the 19th century, clock shops, mail-order catalogues and the railway took over, and the trade gradually died out.
His silhouette, however, lived on. Between 1918 and 1923, the clock peddler adorned the emergency banknotes, or Notgeld, of Triberg, Furtwangen and Neustadt, local notes issued when official currency ran short. Later, tourism turned him into a symbol of the region, just like the clocks he once carried.
A piece of the Black Forest in your home
Peddler, hiker, shingle maker: each character tells of everyday life in the Black Forest of old. It turns your cuckoo clock into much more than a timepiece: a page of history hanging on your wall. Find them all among our chalet cuckoo clocks.