Get a smile - buy a Cocou clock

It is impossible to say for sure when the first cuckoo clock was made. But from several sources I have found that in the beginning of 1700 it was heard in Germany. Many nice memories come from the sound of a cuckoo coming out to tell the time. Children have learned mathematics and I remember how I was staring on that tiny door to see if it would really come out. And it did every single time flapping its little wings singing cuckoo cuckoo!

Many of the wooden cuckoo clocks are winded up by a weight often in the shape of a pine cone. Two pine cones are hanging in chains and when one reach low level, you have to pull the other one down, and the clock continues to tick tack.

As the years have gone, the cuckoo clock has been more or less decorated. The funny mechanisms can be a man chopping wood, a deer jumping up and down and people dancing. Some clocks are painted in colours but most of them are brown with a bird or ornament on the top. These days, you can buy a battery driven clock.

It is said that a man called Anton Ketterer managed to copy the sound of the cuckoo bird. He lived in the Black forest area in Germany.

Although the exact date remains a mystery, it is commonly thought that cuckoo clocks first made their appearance around 1730 in the Black Forest area of Germany. To this day, even with all that has come along with modern experience, skill and technology, no other clock or timepiece has made the lasting impression that the Cuckoo clock made at the time of its introduction. Although there are a number of conflicting stories about who actually made the first cuckoo clock, the invention is generally attributed to a gentleman by the name of Franz Anton Ketterer, from the town of Triberg.

Today, the hand made cuckoo clocks are loved all over the world. In the small village of Triberg, it is estimated that some 13,500 people were engaged in some part of the manufacture of cuckoo clocks, working for over 600 different manufacturers and all because Mr. Ketterer managed to duplicate the sound of a cuckoo bird!