Black Forest Surrer
The Black Forest Surrer is a special type of Lackschild watch . It is much rarer and therefore popular with collectors.
It has a 4/4 chime grande sonnerie and strikes every quarter of an hour (first once, then twice, three times and four times) and also the current full hour on two gongs or two bells. Surrer with "Italian beat" are seldom found, however, they beat the first 6 hours in the conventional way, the next 6 hours then only once.
Mostly, and especially in older models, these movements have a vertical windscreen instead of a horizontal one and do not have a lock washer , which has the advantage that the current sequence of strokes can be repeated manually using a lever. There are surrers with alarm devices and mainsprings, as can be found in normal lacquer plate clocks.
The Surrer must not be confused with a lacquer plate clock with 3 winding weights, the so-called "three weights", here the quarter-hour strike is realized with 2 striking mechanisms. The elevator weights of Surrerwerke are also heavier, otherwise it is externally indistinguishable from other lacquer plate clocks.
The name Surrer refers to the whirring noise that can be heard particularly well when the clock strikes a low number (1 a.m. 15 minutes), as the lever-pin wheel has to return to its starting position after each stroke, as it contains staggered pins and the Number of strokes determined with.