204.    $1500

W E Haines & Sons Cigar Store Advertiser “King Carlos”, ca. 1925.  This advertiser stands 65 inches high with a 28-inch topper with wings that extend to just under 36 inches.  The clock is the 27-inch Wm Gilbert “Malaga”, in fumed oak with a three-glass lower panel and a 7-inch signed metal dial.  All glasses are old.  The 8-day signed Gilbert movement, dated 1913, counts the hours and strikes the half-hour on two chime rods (“ding-dong”).  It is running and striking. The handsome gentleman inside and on the pendulum bob is King Carlos I of Portugal, who ruled from 1889 to 1908, when he was assassinated.   It is unclear to me why a cigar was named after him, but there you go.  Other prominently featured cigars are The Red Swan and Blue Bird.  All paper ads are cleaned and well preserved but faded, now overcoated with a slightly glossy finish.  Wooden cigars with cigar rings bracket the wings.  There is a good Haines label on the back indicating that this clock was sold to a store in Missouri.  $1500-$3000.

W E Haines Cigar Advertiser clocks

W.E. Haines was a tobacco distributor working out of Abbottstown PA in the early 1900’s.  To promote his cigar sales, he created and distributed clocks that he had modified with cigar advertising.  It is not clear if he sold these clocks or gave them to his best customers as promotional items; perhaps both.  All have a label on the back with his business name and the destination of the clock.  He used a variety of contemporary clocks, apparently whatever he could obtain and modify.  Virtually all were hanging clocks, some quite tall.  Most were distributed to the Midwest, especially Kansas, but they were also sent to stores in Chicago and New York.  These clocks were accumulated, presumably in the early 1960’s as the stores closed or were remodeled, by a contractor for a tobacco company and stored on his farm.  His family with Greg Arey had the clocks restored after his death in 2005; some of you may know Greg from his association with the Kansas City chapter of NAWCC, where he has shown some of these clocks in the past.  Greg recently released 43 of these rare, one-of-a-kind clocks for sale through Showtime Auctions.  You can see all the clocks that were sold at Showtime here.  All clocks have been cleaned and restored as necessary; all are running.  They can be disassembled for ease of shipping or transport.  We hope you like them!