cuckoo clock speaker

I haven't been able to post here in a while. We at North Coast Imports have been busy playing the role of the elves - getting all of our charming and beautiful cuckoo clocks and other timepieces out to holiday buyers.

Here's something completely off topic:



This interesting project by French artist Stephane Vigny, is a combination of a cuckoo clock and a giant loud speaker. When the bass is loud, the largest speaker on the bottom is released on a hinge-mechanism and catapulted into the room, retreating back to the cabinet when the sound softens. Although we're not sure if this increases the dance action of the space, it's a cool idea to allow sound to exist as a kinetic object of sorts.
Stephane Vigny Art
via: Makezine

Animated Town Clocks Around the World

Everybody knows about the clock in Munich and Prague, but did you know about Tokyo? I really like the music...





Here's another one in Tokyo.

And, of course, fans of North Coast Imports already know about this one in Ohio...


Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!!

watches from outer space

Here's something interesting...


Forget diamonds - one Swiss watchmaker is betting on watches made from moon dust, parts of the Apollo 11 rocket and bits of spacesuits to capture consumer cash as an economic slow down bites.

More than 600 watchmakers have the Swiss brand stamp, so Geneva-based Romain Jerome aims to use "inaccessible materials" to set its products apart from rivals such as Richemont's Vacheron Constantin and independent watchmaker Patek Philippe.

"We chose the space conquest," he said. "Going to the moon was the biggest adventure of human kind."

The group will make 1969 watches - matching the year of Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's first journey to the moon - for the "Moon Dust-DNA" collection.

The watches, which start at $US15,000 and can cost as much as $US500,000, will be launched in Geneva on Wednesday and presented to customers at next year's Baselworld, the largest annual fair for the watch and jewelry industry.

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Meanwhile, at the North Coast Imports nerve center, we are working on presenting our own (considerably less expensive) watches from outer space. We will have a few pieces available from the prestigious firm Poljot International which is the upscale, German factory that produces fine examples that were worn by Soviet Cosmonauts.

In addition to the old Russian styles, there are some stunning new designs. These are made in Germany, with German quality control. Stay tuned, we've got a few models in... send us an email if you are interested.

New Ideas for Cuckoo Clocks

Ingolf Haas is starting a movement of re imagining the cuckoo clock. North Coast Imports is proud to be introducing this new and exciting line of handcrafted works of art. Stay tuned for more designs.



Experimenting on the cuckoo clock is a real trend among designers and conceptual artists. Here's a wacky idea, that may not make it to mass production: a cuckoo clock based on the movie Stanley Kubricks's The Shining... (click on the link and scroll down)

The Catalogs are Away!

Be sure to visit your nearest North Coast Imports dealer! The new cuckoo catalogs are arriving in a store near you this week. The selection is fantastic. Choose the most fascinating and beautiful designs from Romba, Sternreiter, and Hubert Herr!

In the meantime, do you remember this?

Corpus Clock

Dubbed the strangest clock in the world, it features a giant grasshopper and has 60 slits cut into its face which light up to show the time.
Its creator John Taylor said he "wanted to make timekeeping interesting".

BBC

That's pretty much NCI's mantra - "Making timekeeping interesting." In addition to our own clocks, it's great to find extravagant works of horological art being produced throughout the world.

This one is pretty fascinating. Although it has LED lights and an electric winding motor, it is otherwise all mechanical with a grasshopper escapement.

By the way, our new cuckoo clock catalog should be finished printing by Friday. Make sure we have your favorite clock or jewelry or gift store on file so that they will receive our new catalog.

New Catalog Preview

You saw it here first! North Coast Imports is pre-releasing our NEW Cuckoo catalog #56. You can download a PDF of the 40-page, pre-print, rough draft here:



Please keep in mind that this is still a rough-draft copy. It's colors are not very sharp, and there are a few pictures missing. We were so excited, we wanted to put out an advance copy, but for full details and pics visit our main website at http://www.northcoastimports.com/ All of our cuckoo clocks are up there, even with movies of each clock!

To have and hold your very own copy of the catalog you can print out the PDF!