Gustav Becker
A clockmaker who learned his trade in Vienna turned a small Silesian town into a regulator factory that made its 500,000th clock by 1885.
A Vienna-trained clockmaker in Silesia
Gustav Becker was born on 2 May 1819 in Oels, Silesia, and died on 14 September 1889 in Berchtesgaden, according to the Neue Deutsche Biographie, Germany's standard biographical reference. He learned clockmaking in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and in Vienna he assisted the maker Happacher at the time the first Vienna regulator clocks were being built.
In 1847 Becker settled as a clockmaker in Freiburg, a town in Silesia that is now Świebodzice in Poland, and in 1849 he produced his first regulators, according to the same biography. Owners should not confuse this Freiburg with Freiburg im Breisgau in the Black Forest.
Becker married Louise Seelig in Oels in 1845, two years before he set up in Freiburg. The couple had five daughters and four sons. Three of the sons later held leading posts in the clock factory, and one co-founded a brewery in the Silesian town of Wohlau.
Factory methods and fast growth
Becker's idea was to apply division of labor to a product that had been made by hand. With state support he trained boys from struggling local weaving families to work in pendulum clock production, and from 1854 he supplied office clocks to the entire Prussian postal service, according to the Neue Deutsche Biographie.
Growth was rapid. In 1885 the firm presented its 500,000th clock, built as a showpiece, to Otto von Bismarck for his 70th birthday. By 1899 it was listed as part of the United Freiburg Clock Factories, which included the former Becker business. The biography notes that the Freiburg clock industry gave thousands of people a living.
Factory methods also changed the price. The collector site Abbey Clock understands that a Becker regulator cost about one-tenth as much to make as a comparable hand-made Vienna regulator. Becker's clocks went on to collect awards at trade exhibitions as far apart as Vienna and Australia, according to the collector reference Antique Clock Guy.
What Gustav Becker made
Becker is best known for regulator wall clocks in the Vienna style, along with other pendulum clocks and office clocks. Abbey Clock, describing a Becker regulator probably from the late 1880s, notes a conventional rack-and-snail striking system and a Vulliamy escapement, a Graham-type escapement with adjustable pallets.
According to Antique Clock Guy, nearly all Becker clocks were weight-driven wall regulators until spring-driven movements were introduced in 1880, after which the range grew to more than 400 varieties. The firm carried on under the Becker name after its founder's death: the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum in Furtwangen holds an unusual Becker alarm clock, the Brummer model of 1914, with a case shaped like a shell.
How to identify and date a Becker clock
Becker won a medal at the 1852 Silesian trade exhibition, and Antique Clock Guy reports that he worked that medal and his initials, G.B., into his trademark. The mark can turn up well beyond the dial, on movement mounts, wall brackets, beat plates and weight pulleys, and an anchor logo was also used. Look at all of these before deciding a clock is unmarked.
Serial numbers on the movement give a rough date. Collector tables published by Abbey Clock and Antique Clock Guy run from 480 in 1850 to about 100,000 in 1875, 500,000 in 1885, 1,000,000 in 1892 and 1,500,000 in 1900, ending at 2,244,868 in 1926. Antique Clock Guy says the table covers Freiburg production only, not clocks from Braunau, so treat any date from it as approximate.
What became of the company
The firm did not survive the economic crisis that followed 1929 as an independent business. Abbey Clock says Junghans took it over in 1935, and Antique Clock Guy says clocks carried the Becker trademark until 1935; dates for the merger vary in other collector accounts, so the mid-1930s is the safest summary. Junghans also absorbed the Black Forest regulator maker Lenzkirch around the same period.
See also: getting an old regulator serviced properly on OnlineClock.app.
Questions people ask
How do I tell how old my Gustav Becker clock is?
Find the serial number on the movement and compare it with a collector serial table. As a rough guide, numbers near 500,000 date to about 1885 and numbers near 1,500,000 to about 1900. The G.B. medal trademark or the anchor logo confirms the maker.
Is Gustav Becker still in business?
No. Junghans took the firm over in the mid-1930s, and its Freiburg factory town is now Świebodzice in Poland.
Was Gustav Becker from the Black Forest town of Freiburg?
No. Becker's Freiburg was in Silesia, today Świebodzice in Poland, not Freiburg im Breisgau in the Black Forest.