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Swiss Favag Clock - mid 1900s

CHF 875.00

At 11.5 kg, this Favag wall clock weighs many times more than its ordinary cousins, and we aren’t entirely sure why.

Made in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in the middle of the 20th century, its massive cast iron housing closes like a clamshell, two heavy halves hinged at the side and secured with brass screws. Power enters through a brass cable gland on top, keeping the enclosure sealed from the outside world. This is the kind of construction normally reserved for demanding industrial settings, and we suspect it spent its working life somewhere ordinary clocks would have been too fragile.

The light grey housing frames a crisp white dial with bold black Arabic numerals, a full minute track and broad black baton hands, made to be read at a glance from across a room.

Measuring 37 cm in diameter, it is a clock with real gravity, perfect for a kitchen, workshop or living space in need of a statement piece with some mystery to it.

This clock retains its original electric mechanism, which is running smoothly and is driven by the included VEEB Clock Driver for reliable, accurate time synchronisation. The VEEB Clock Driver is included with every clock purchase.

At 11.5 kg, this Favag wall clock weighs many times more than its ordinary cousins, and we aren’t entirely sure why.

Made in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in the middle of the 20th century, its massive cast iron housing closes like a clamshell, two heavy halves hinged at the side and secured with brass screws. Power enters through a brass cable gland on top, keeping the enclosure sealed from the outside world. This is the kind of construction normally reserved for demanding industrial settings, and we suspect it spent its working life somewhere ordinary clocks would have been too fragile.

The light grey housing frames a crisp white dial with bold black Arabic numerals, a full minute track and broad black baton hands, made to be read at a glance from across a room.

Measuring 37 cm in diameter, it is a clock with real gravity, perfect for a kitchen, workshop or living space in need of a statement piece with some mystery to it.

This clock retains its original electric mechanism, which is running smoothly and is driven by the included VEEB Clock Driver for reliable, accurate time synchronisation. The VEEB Clock Driver is included with every clock purchase.

Control the angle of rotation with the yellow slider bar

A Timeline of FAVAG

  • MOBATIME 2002
    Moser-Baer introduces MOBATIME as its brand name. The Neuchâtel line ends up in Sumiswald, the Emmental village that also gave Switzerland its railway station clock. Moser-Baer
  • The clock division changes hands 1989
    W. Moser-Baer AG and J. Bosshard SA jointly acquire FAVAG's clock division in Neuchâtel. The rest of Ascom FAVAG stays where it is; it is the clockmaking that leaves. Mobatime
  • Ascom 1987
    Hasler, Autophon and Zellweger Telecommunications merge to form Ascom, a group of some thirteen thousand people built to face the coming liberalisation of the Swiss telecoms market. FAVAG becomes Ascom FAVAG. Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz
  • Hasler takes over 1932
    Hasler of Bern takes over FAVAG. The Neuchâtel works keep their name and their clocks, but the independence that began with Hipp is over. Oscahr, Université de Strasbourg
  • FAVAG SA 1927
    Favarger & Cie SA is renamed FAVAG, short for Fabrik elektrischer Apparate AG. The name on your clock dates from here. Oscahr
  • Favarger & Cie 1908
    The Hipp name comes off the letterhead nineteen years after he left. Albert Favarger runs the firm as director until 1920. A bankruptcy follows, and the business is continued under the FAVAG name. Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, Science Museum Group
  • Peyer & Favarger, Succ. de M. Hipp 1889
    At seventy-five Hipp hands the factory to his engineers Albert Favarger and A. de Peyer, and the works carry their names alongside his for the next nineteen years. He moves to Fluntern to be near his daughter, and dies there in 1893. Biography, Science Museum Group
  • Minute jumpers 1869
    Hipp patents the impulse system for daughter clocks known as minute jumpers, which steps every dial on a network forward together at the top of each minute. It is why a building full of clocks can agree with itself.
  • Electric clocks reach Geneva 1862
    Hipp installs an electric clock system in Geneva. Mother-and-daughter networks go on to spread across Europe, into stations, schools, hospitals and spa towns on every continent.
  • Fabrique des télégraphes M. Hipp 1860
    Hipp leaves the federal workshop and founds his own telegraph and electrical apparatus factory in Neuchâtel. It turns quickly to electric clock networks, and to distributing exact time down telegraph wires from 1863. Over forty years he brings more than twenty inventions to maturity, including the astronomical pendulum of the Neuchâtel observatory in 1877. Deutsche Biographie, Biography
  • Director in Bern 1852
    The Swiss government appoints Hipp head of production at the federal telegraph workshop in Bern, where he stays eight years. He was German, and remained so all his life, which did not stop the Swiss calling him their Edison. Wikipedia, Biography
  • The chronoscope 1850
    Hipp builds an instrument that measures intervals to a thousandth of a second, timed not by a pendulum but by a metal reed vibrating a thousand times a second. Armies used it to clock projectiles. Psychologists used it to try to measure the speed of thought. Science Museum Group
  • The Hipp toggle 1843
    A miller's son from Blaubeuren, lame since a childhood fall, apprenticed to a clockmaker at sixteen, Matthäus Hipp shows his toggle mechanism at an exhibition in Berlin, described only as a clock with its movement below the pendulum. He had worked out the principle by 1834 and fitted it to a clock in Reutlingen the year before. Sotheby's, Wikipedia