THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY
Picture it: January 2018.
Hi. My name is Gregory Gerard Allison.
I grew up hearing stories about my grandfather's craft.
A self-taught watchmaker at 16, over the period of his life,
he designed and created 13 unique "Allison clocks".
The collection included the "Allison Mystery Clock"...a wooden timepiece that had no visible works, or gears, or wires...the hands could be set spinning, independently, in any direction...yet they would always return to the currect time (including the time elapsed while spinning). How did it work? Nobody knew. My grandfather thought of the design in a dream.
The Allison Collection was praised by watchmakers, engineers (and even Hollywood celebrities!) during the 1940s in Los Angeles. Many added their signatures and comments to the Allison Watchmakers guest book (which I inherited). A brief sample:
Gene Krupa, legendary jazz drummer for The Benny Goodman Orchestra: "I'd like to be able to keep time as well as your clocks and watches do--and I'm supposed to be a fair drummer!"
Mary Astor, who starred opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon: "This is something new and different!"
Sterling Holloway, voice of animated Winnie the Pooh: "For 'The Wizard of Time' Allison."
Grandpa Charley died in 1955 and only one of his timepieces was in my family's hands through inheritance. The remaining 12 were supposed to go to a museum, but where? When? Unknown. I vowed in my journal, at age 15 (1981),
to locate the missing collection when I grew up.
FLASH FORWARD.
Now, at 51, I'm writing a book about the search for my grandfather's (Charley Allison's) lost timepieces.
The quest includes movie stars and letters and divorces and broken gears and the Amish community and all sorts of stuff that I couldn't make up if I tried.
Here's a teaser YOUTUBE VIDEO (4 min.)
August 2020 Update:
My quest was written up in the July/August 2020 edition of the Watch & Clock Bulletin from the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors, Inc. (NAWCC). With its national distribution, it may turn up some leads.
Here's the article in PDF form:
QUEST FOR INFORMATION
And my research has turned up some vintage newspaper articles from The Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet that captured my grandfather's uniqueness:
September 2022 Update:
I'm very excited to report that, after 70 years,
my grandfather's collection is FOUND!
In a most unlikely place...
Featured in this
YouTube video:
If you find my grandfather's lost-and-found timepiece collection intriguing,
please help me spread the word with a Facebook share...and thank you, sincerely!
