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Cuckoo clock: The collapse in demand is followed by an explosion in material costs
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / picture alliance / dpa
The production of cuckoo clocks in Germany fell by more than half last year.
The manufacturers produced around 20,100 cuckoo clocks worth 4.1 million euros, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Tuesday in Wiesbaden.
In 2019 there were around 43,600 pieces worth EUR 8.5 million.
The fact that the decline of almost 54 percent is clearly above the minus for other wall clocks (around 17 percent) is explained by statisticians primarily with the lack of tourism due to Corona - and should be correct. The big manufacturers, who primarily produced for holidaymakers, were hit very hard, said Andreas Kreyer from the “Die Schwarzwalduhr” association in Schonach (Schwarzwald-Baar district). "They are still suffering from it." Exports also suffered.
According to Kreyer, one important reason is not in the Black Forest, but in the Bavarian Alps: the Passion Play has usually been held in Oberammergau for centuries every ten years. "The event is driving up sales," said Kreyer, who runs the Rombach & Haas company in Schonach with his wife. Due to Corona, the amateur play of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was canceled last year and postponed to 2022.
In particular, smaller manufacturers and suppliers of watch movements, for example, would have had to apply for short-time work during the lockdown, said Kreyer.
At least the camps are reasonably full.
This buffers the stress that is currently emerging in times of omnipresent scarcity.
For example, prices and availability of wood increased.
"We don't have the material that we have on our doorstep."
Price increases are also having an impact on brass for clockworks or cast iron for weights.
Since these would be made of steel with high energy consumption, rising energy costs played a further role.
“You don't get any more lacquers and stains,” Kreyer explained.
And even with corrugated cardboard and cardboard boxes for shipping, he waits several months for orders.
"Even there we have bottlenecks."
The fact that the Federal Statistical Office deals with cuckoo clocks at the end of October has, in addition to a possible love for craft, a very practical reason: on the night of Sunday (October 31) the clocks are set back an hour - then winter time applies.
"In purely mathematical terms, people therefore have one hour more sleep," explained the statisticians - "if the cuckoo doesn't wake them".
mik / dpa-AFX
