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This was the first clock in this country that registered station visits by embossing the station indicia on the dial rather than by simply pricking a hole in it. Each
of the station keys presses a particular tumbler against the paper chart. By a distinctive type element on the tumbler, the action presses the paper into a forming die of corresponding number or letter and so
makes an embossed mark that identifies the station at which the registration was made. Mr. Hahn was thoroughly familiar with clocks in which tumblers or bendable spring elements carried pins which marked
the chart by putting a hole in it. The dials for such clocks are printed with annular rings numbered to identify the station at which a registration was made. Mr. Hahn's embossing system did away with the
need for the printed annular rings in which the pin prick appears. Somewhere in the 1870s, perhaps as result of the devastating decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of J. E. Buerk, Meyer seems to have
withdrawn from the U. S. market in favor of his friend, Theodor Hahn (See ID. 154)
. Thus in this country we see many clocks that emboss and don't require annular rings, but none (by Meyer) that pricks the dial and does require the annular rings. A
complicating factor in any process of identification is that, while each of the men were alive, their movements and clocks, at least those which reached this country, were never marked with a trademark or other evidence
of source. Later, when Reinhard Vogelmann was in possession of both businesses, some Hahn products other than these small movements came to bear an emblem of a rooster and the initials T.H. Advertising for
the Meyer workshop after his death in 1885, and at least one movement known in a Newman 1902, bore acknowledgement that the firm was a successor ("Nachf.") to Anton Meyer. Luckily for identification, we have the
detailed importation records, by clock number, of dozens and dozens of "Watches" from "T. Hahn" received by the Nanz firm in New York in the period roughly 1893 to 1914. By comparing
clocks in the collection with those in the imported group, we can establish without doubt which clocks were by Hahn. From the combined record we can see that over this period, except for escapement details and
ratchet wheel embellishments, the shape, size, and configuration of the movements remained almost invariant. The movement pictured here (from clock No. 26,931 of 1912) is outwardly indistinguishable from almost
all the "Hahn" clock movements in the Detex Watchclock Collection. They range from an "Imhauser" clock numbered 4,423 (c. 1879), to a "Hahn" single station unit numbered 28,206
that was imported by Nanz Clock Company in 1914. The patent listed above covers a spring-loading feature in the dial carrier that prevents the station key being able to hold the dial and
perhaps stop the movement. This never became a standard feature in clocks Mr. Hahn made for Mr. Nanz. In all probability clock No. 10,017 was sent to Mr. Nanz as a sample and has
been in the nascent Detex Watchclock Collection ever since 1891. |
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Hahn's clock is the direct predecessor
of the "Chicago" that was made by the Hahn firm for the Chicago Watchman's Clock Works from about 1911 to 1914. This is a much heavier class of movement, competing with the Newman, and here the
rooster emblem begins to appear. Even earlier, Hahn's was inspiration for the Standard made by Schlenker-Grusen and marketed by E. O. Hausburg, New York, from about 1905 until the War, and for the
Standard made by Württembergische Uhrenfabrik Schwenningen and sparsely marketed in this country after WWI. Although all these clocks
show apparent sophistication by embossing the chart rather than pricking it, they all suffered a degree of weakness in that it was not difficult to counterfeit simple keys to depress the tumblers.