Cuckoo Clock Buying Guide

The cuckoo clock harks back to a time when a purchase was a deliberative process. Impulse buying? In the 18th Century, that would have meant chasing a door-to-door clock peddler down the street while waving your moneybag. But if there's one thing that cuckoo clock lovers understand, it's the benefit of taking one's time and making an informed decision. With that in mind, we invite you to spend a few minutes reading our helpful cuckoo clock buying guide. Don't worry; that cuckoo isn't going anywhere. At least for an hour.

Pricing Cuckoo Clocks
Cuckoo clocks range in price from less than $100 to upwards of several thousand dollars. Yes, traditional cuckoo clocks can be expensive, but they're also hand-carved, hand-painted, and constructed with a dedication to quality that you simply don't find anymore. A traditional cuckoo clock, such as one made by Anton Schneider, is built with the same care and methods that were employed over 150 years ago. It's a work of art that will provide unrivaled durability and beauty.

That said, though they're smaller and feature less elaborate carvings and movements, many of our less expensive traditional cuckoo clocks are hand-made by the same clock factories as our top-tier clocks. When you buy from a trusted brand, quality is assured - regardless of your budget.

Cuckoo Clock Styles
Germany's Black Forest region is renowned as the birthplace of the cuckoo clock as we know it today. The traditional style of Black Forest cuckoo clocks often features woodsy domestic scenes and pine cone weights. The leaf and bird motif and the Bahnh￤usle, or railway house form, are also common.

The carved figures on traditional Black Forest cuckoo clocks may include dancing children or couples, quarreling spouses, beer drinkers, blacksmiths, and chimneysweeps, or animal figurines such as bears, woodchucks, or squirrels.

Chalet cuckoo clocks are a popular alternative to the Black Forest style. The Chalet cuckoo clock style originated in Switzerland. There are three different chalet styles: Brienz and Emmental from Switzerland, and Bavarian.

Additional Cuckoo Clock Buying Tips

Movements
Mechanical cuckoo clocks feature either one-day movements (actually 30 hours) or eight-day movements. The cuckoo pops out every half-hour and hour. Typically, music plays and figures move every hour and half-hour on one-day movements, but only every hour on eight-day movements. However, with one-day movements, the weights must be pulled up every day. Eight-day clocks only need winding once a week.

Music
A quick rule of thumb: If a cuckoo clock has three weights, it's musical; if it has two weights, it's not. The clock's figures will dance, move, or spin when the music is playing. The number of notes and songs that a music box has is one important factor in a cuckoo clock's price.

Night Shut-Off
If you don't want your cuckoo clock going off at night, make sure it has a night shut-off. The shut-off will be manual if you have a mechanical cuckoo clock, and automatic if you have a quartz battery-powered cuckoo clock.