Mike Baker started his profession in horology when he was despatched over to Zimbabwe throughout WW2 as a fireman for the Royal Air Power. After a fall from a ladder which broke his again, Baker took up a restoration venture while recuperating. A good friend had come to Baker commenting a clock of theirs had stopped working, Baker took up the mantel and set about making an attempt to get it again in working order.
His son Peter remembers:
He determined it wanted a clear and dunked it entire into some cleansing fluid as a result of he didn’t daretake it aside in case he couldn’t put it again collectively once more. It labored!
This gamble paid off and was the beginning of his profession as an Antiquarian Horologist in Zimbabwe, the following 30 years he labored on constructing his fame because the main clock repairman within the nation.
Within the Nineteen Seventies he returned to the UK and carried on his restore enterprise. This included primarily enterprise non-public initiatives from his base in Tonbridge, Kent, nonetheless, he was additionally commissioned to work on the clocks at Salisbury Cathedral and Brighton Pavilion.
Baker’s favorite pastime was researching the historical past of every clock, who was the producer, previous house owners, and what was the journey of this timepiece. Within the days earlier than the web, this concerned writing letters to producers or tracing the lives and deaths of previous house owners by way of archives. His particular pursuits included longcase clocks, chronometers and navigational devices.
The Assortment of Mike Baker
The gathering contains of twenty-nine heaps together with clocks, timepieces and scientific devices. The heaps date from the seventeenth to the twentieth century and have estimates from £70 to £4,000. Peter Baker remembers the story behind the spotlight piece in his father’s assortment (lot 23).
His most proud piece was the astronomical grandfather clock on the market as a part of this assortment. The story goes that he was referred to as out to restore a clock and while there was handed a cardboard field. It was defined to him {that a} grandfather clock case had disintegrated on account of woodworm, and as such had been thrown on the bonfire. He was handed the motion, gears, and so forth. as “spare elements”. Meaning to rescue the remainder of the clock’s elements, he climbed onto the bonfire and retrieved the remainder of the mechanical objects. He managed to revive the clock’s workings and had a brand new lengthy case constructed from hardwood. His restoration venture was included in a write-up within the Antiquarian Horological Society’s paper (AHS Difficulty 6 1968). Right here he detailed an uncommon gear which rotated roughly each 2 years. Responses to the article included a suggestion that it was the gestation interval of an elephant, but it surely was decided that the seemingly clarification was the rotation of Mars.
Baker’s assortment included timepieces from a varied variety of creators together with Joseph Knibb, Charles Frodsham, Arsene Margaine, E.J Dent, and Thomas Mercer alongside a Japanese Wadokei lantern clock, Bulle electrical clock, a French thriller clock within the method of Guilmet and a repeater carriage clock made for the Chinese language market. Throughout the assortment of devices, there’s a Charles Frodsham marine two-day chronometer, a Cary Gould-type monocular, a Henry Porter sextant, and a Cary 5.5in celestial globe.
Highlights from The Mike Baker Assortment
Lot 1
Joseph Knibb timepiece desk clock, circa 1690
Estimate: £4,000 – £6,000
Lot 2
E.J Dent ebonised repeating clock
Estimate: £3,000 – £5,000
Lot 5
French Impressed rouge marble clock marked Frodsham
Estimate: £200 – £300
Lot 7
Thomas Mercer leather-based cased eight day chronometer carriage clock
Estimate: £2,000 – £3,000
London
Thursday fifteenth August 10:00-16:00
Birmingham
Monday 2nd September 10:00-16:00
Tuesday third September 10:00-16:00
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Alexandra Whittaker BA (Hons) | Head of Partnerships and Occasions
