Remarkable collector's pieces from the watch and clock museum Wuppertal at the 94th auction

THE ABELER FAMILY'S FAMOUS WATCH AND CLOCK MUSEUM IN WUPPERTAL CLOSED ITS DOORS FOR GOOD IN SEPTEMBER 2016. SPECIAL COLLECTOR'S PIECES FROM THE MUSEUM WILL BE PART OF OUR 94TH AUCTION.

Important information: at the 94th auction, all objects from the watch and clock museum Wuppertal will be called up without estimates or limits!!!

One of a kind – the Abeler family: nine brothers, every single one of them a graduate at the watchmaking school Glashütte, with Prof. Dr. Paul Mikat (front row, 3rd from left), 1962-1966 Minister of Education in North Rhine-Westphalia. The museum – drawing the masses: at the time of its 25 year anniversary, the museum Georg Abeler (front row, right) founded in 1958 had already attracted over a million visitors from all over the world. The watch and clock museum Wuppertal was maintained by the goldsmiths' and watchmaking family Abeler in Wuppertal and held one of the largest and most important private collection of timepieces ever. The museum and its exhibition attracted over a million visitors, among them politicians such as Konrad Adenauer as well as many actors and a number of international delegations. On March 24, 1955, master goldsmith and watchmaker Georg Abeler in Wuppertal bought the late Heinrich Nils Antoine-Feill's collection of timepieces during an auction at the Hohenzollernring in Cologne – the beginnings of the watch and clock museum in Wuppertal. Its finest hour came when Georg Abeler opened the museum in the vaults of the head office in Poststrasse to the public; it was to grow into one of the most cyclopaedic collections in the field of timekeeping. Jürgen Abeler was director of the museum until his death in 2010, after which his son Henrick Abeler took over management. The exhibits in the vaults of the head office of the Abeler jewellery store document a history of 5,000 years - they range from an Egyptian clepsydra, Roman and Greek sun dials, French pendulum clocks and Napoleonic mantel clocks, bracket clocks in the form of animals, candle clocks and hourglasses, clocks in daggers, buttons and even a wooden skull, the complete history of mechanical clocks and the fanciful baroque- and rococo-style pieces to the first atomic clock in Continental Europe dating from 1956 as well as solar and quartz watches. Most of the exhibits were restored and serviced in an inhouse workshop. Faithful replicas and reconstructions were created in the same workshop; around 110 pieces formed the travelling exhibition „5,000 years of timekeeping".