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Comfort Clock
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René R.
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:29 pm    Post subject: Comfort Clock Reply with quote

I am intrigued by the "Comfort Clock" which was evidently a fairly popular VW accessory with a simple magnetic mounting. I've only seen one in person -- my own -- but I've been studying pictures found online and especially in TheSamba classifieds and I think I've figured out the timeline for these, and how they evolved.

This picture, shamelessly taken from a classified ad, shows an original catalog image. It also shows that these were made in both square and round versions. I've seen only a couple of pictures of square ones, I don't know if they evolved in the same way as round ones (but it's likely).

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Looking at the catalog, it shows that the dial is marked "17 jewels" and the clock has a center sweep second hand, like this clock:

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


It seems that at this stage, Comfort was using a good quality 17-jewel German wrist watch movement (a lot smaller than the dial and case):

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


That picture isn't very sharp but it does show a well-made movement. In watch movements, "jewels" refers to bearings made of synthetic ruby, which reduces friction and increases the life of the tiny pivots. Seventeen is considered the minimum for a high quality movement.

The next stage is the most interesting. They kept the same case and dial, with 17 jewel marking, but replaced the good quality movement with a cheap one -- with only 13 jewels. In order to live up to the 17 claimed on the dial they inserted four plain, undrilled, utterly useless jewels into the plate, marked here by an arrow:

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


These 4 jewels serve no purpose other than to raise the count. This sort of chicanery was outlawed by the early 60s, following a "jewel war" in the watch industry which resulted in the ultimate absurdity -- the Waltham "100 Jewels" watch. (It really did have 100 jewels, however 83 of them were useless filler. There were only 17 functional jewels.)

This version of the Comfort Clock looked like the previous one from the front, except that the cheap movement had no second hand.

The next version has a redesigned dial and an even cheaper movement. The reference to jewels on the dial was dropped entirely.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I can't find a photo of the movement in this one so I don't know if it had any jewels. It may have been like some cheap watch and clock movements, which had the minimum 7 jewels to make it at least marginal.

The last version, as far as I know, had yet another redesigned / updated dial.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


This one used a much larger movement than the first two, pocket watch-sized rather than wrist watch-sized. However it was pretty much the opposite of the original good quality watch movement. This one is as cheap as they come, with zero jewels and a pin-lever escapement.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Suffice it to say that this version could not have been as accurate, or long-lived, as the earliest one.
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WD-40
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Comfort Clock Reply with quote

René R. wrote:
This picture, shamelessly taken from a classified ad, shows an original catalog image.


No shame in that! There is a tremendous amount of invaluable historical and technical information that is unknowingly posted in classified ads, and then later disappears forever when the item is sold. Crying or Very sad I couldn't tell you how many things I've found, which originated on TheSamba Classifieds and no longer exists there, but were still findable via Google searches of cached pages.
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WD-40
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:10 pm    Post subject: Re: Comfort Clock Reply with quote

Also, is there any chance that the second clock pictured (on the red dashboard) has been modified/"repaired", or had the movement replaced? It has pointed hands, which don't match the straight bar squared-off (and it looks like, luminous?) hands of all of the other clocks pictured...
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thuestis
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 2:10 pm    Post subject: Re: Comfort Clock Reply with quote

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I acquired this comfort clock from a well known VW accessories collector a few years ago. After buying it I found that didn't really ever use it or take it out of its box.

Recently decided to have it converted to a quartz movement with a battery (I know I may get "flamed" with this comment) so that I would actually use it in my 1960 Westfalia. Sent the clock to Andrew Whal at Ohio Watch Repair for the conversion; 513-347-0153. It came back operating perfectly!! As you can see from the face of the clock everything remained the same... except the external wind knob.... Andy needed to replace it with a knob that is a little bit smaller. Now the clock keeps perfect time and I actually keep it in my bus all the time and rely on it for the time. The purpose of my post was simply to give a shout out for Andy's great work for any other Comfort Clock owners who never really use their clock.
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René R.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 8:51 pm    Post subject: Re: Comfort Clock Reply with quote

I won't flame you over that, and I'm a professional watchmaker....

To be honest, I did the same with mine in the end. When I first got it I overhauled it, which was totally routine for me. It worked fine and kept decent time for a mid-range 13-jewel movement. But what bugged me was that it needed to be wound daily. Most old car clocks had 8-day mainsprings which only had to be wound weekly. These Comfort Clocks had short watch mainsprings. I got very tired of constantly winding it, and resetting it when I didn't drive the car for a couple of days.

I removed the original movement, installed a new quartz movement, and now it keeps perfect time with no effort beyond replacing the battery once a year or so. I kept the original movement so I can put it back to original in a few minutes if I were ever to sell it. (I was fortunate to find a winding/setting crown in my parts that looks almost exactly like the original.)

Given that yours is a later version, with a very low-grade zero-jewel movement with pin-lever escapement, you would have had problems keeping it running with the original movement for any length of time. Those were not made to last, or even to be repaired. So a quartz update is a perfect solution. And, again, it can be reconverted to original in the future so there's no downside.

I totally love mine. I'm glad to read that you're enjoying yours now.
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