Cranking Out the Time

During my lifelong search for remarkable clocks, I tried a new street in the old quarter and entered with anticipation a shop filled with antique toys. After perusing shelves weighed down with dolls and mechanical animals, I divulged my mission to a diminutive, old lady behind the counter.

Her eyes sparkled as she disappeared behind some curtains and, after some sounds of rummaging, she reappeared blowing the dust off a 6-inch square, polished walnut box. She plugged it in and urged, “Turn ze handle.” As I cranked, the thick lid slowly opened and the hand organ played a tinny “Rock Around The Clock”. At the same time, a door slid aside in the bottom half of the box, revealing an opening from which a tiny, white, twirling ballerina arose.

I asked if the shiny figurine was porcelain, but she answered shaking her head, “Zis beesvax.” She explained that the music box was quite old but had been updated with “new” music and with electricity instead of kerosene. I explained that this was not what I had been looking for, but she shook her index finger at me and insisted, “Vait, you see.”

I cranked on, and to my surprise a panel opened in the box lid exposing the treaded, metal sole of a boot the size of a baby shoe. The sole was imprinted with some peculiar symbols, and I gaped astonished, as the boot slowly emerged from its compartment in a curved path towards the ballerina.

When I pointed, the old woman warned me, “Is very varm,” and the hot boot on its animated leg bore down upon the delicate, wax dancer. With sizzles and hissing she was transformed to a flattened lump, and the motorized leg retreated, leaving the correct time pressed into the surface.

When the shop owner explained that the wax is automatically cast into a new figurine, ready to display the time again five minutes after closing the lid, I was compelled to add the box to my collection.