Q:I inherited a "gingerbread" clock from my grandmother, who must have bought it sometime between 1870 and 1930. The case looks like walnut, and the glass covering the front has an etched design. The only identification on it is a partial paper label on the back that says, "Emil Beyer, Watchmaker and Jeweler, Corner 16th and Peach streets, Erie, Pa." The year 1914 is penciled on the back. Can you help me estimate age and value?

A:Gingerbread clocks, also called "kitchen clocks," were introduced after the Civil War and remained popular until World War I. The clocks' cases are pressed, not solid, wood and their designs were pressed into heat-bonded wood veneers or fibers. Emil Beyer, who immigrated to the United States from Germany in about 1880, was the sole proprietor of his family's jewelry shop in Erie from 1900 until his death in 1919. It's very likely that your clock dates from 1914, the year that's penciled on the back. Beyer did not manufacture your clock. The label shows only that his shop sold it. The clock was probably made by one of the U.S. companies that produced countless gingerbread clocks: Ansonia, Gilbert, Ingraham, Seth Thomas or Waterbury. Gingerbread clocks in good condition sell for about $150 to $200.