He is the mayor of a small town of 1,100 people in Haut-Rhin and undoubtedly one of the most important French collectors of Comtoise clocks.
A priceless treasure that André Sieber keeps in the garage of his house in Algolsheim.
“I have 250 clocks that I have found all over France for 30 years.
These objects have the particularity of being installed in wooden boxes,” says the first magistrate of the Alsatian commune.
Objects that the septuagenarian installed in his basement which looks more like a huge jumble than a clock museum.
Trained with a watchmaker for 12 years
Passionate about watchmaking like King Louis XVI, “I spend my time cleaning and repairing the mechanisms of these clocks.
So I had to have a practical space to dismantle them,” explains André Sieber.
The mayor trained with a Franche-Comté watchmaker for 12 years.
“I went to this expert every two months for a decade.
Thanks to him, I now know how to date a clock at a glance and authenticate them,” he smiles.
It is this very special know-how that allowed this man to acquire his incredible collection of clocks, the majority of which were manufactured between the 17th and 19th centuries.
“The oldest dates from 1680 and in my collection I have a clock which belonged to Armand Peugeot, the founder of the automobile group,” says the Alsatian.
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André Sieber regularly refuses large sums of money from Swiss or German collectors.
“I have unique pieces in my collection.
The tens of thousands of euros that I am sometimes offered will not replace the attachment I have to these clocks,” he assures.
For nothing in the world, he would deprive himself of his daily ritual: “Every evening I go down to my garage to wind a dozen clocks and to admire my collection”