Comments on: Taxing times http://writeantiques.com/taxing-times/ Helping You Find Right Antiques Mon, 07 May 2012 23:47:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Christopher Proudlove http://writeantiques.com/taxing-times/comment-page-1/#comment-208 Christopher Proudlove Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:53:11 +0000 http://www.writeantiques.com/taxing-times/#comment-208 Dear Mr Loomes Many thanks for your comments. You're right about clocks and CGT. Vintage, veteran and classic cars are another area not liable to the tax (which is why I aspire to collect both!). Dear Mr Loomes
Many thanks for your comments. You’re right about clocks and CGT. Vintage, veteran and classic cars are another area not liable to the tax (which is why I aspire to collect both!).

]]> By: robert loomes http://writeantiques.com/taxing-times/comment-page-1/#comment-207 robert loomes Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:04:25 +0000 http://www.writeantiques.com/taxing-times/#comment-207 On the other hand... we've been left a quirky legacy by the taxman. Unlike most other antiques, clocks are free of capital gains tax. Thanks to a ruling by the taxman that machinery cannot be seen as a rising investment, it is assumed that any machine (and I understand this may include guns) is exempt from capital gains. Interesting to see a clock fan using HP and Heinz tomato bottles - both are naturally caustic and were used (probably in the Clerkenwell workshops your mother describes in the 60s/70s) as cleaning agents for getting into crevices in dirty brass! Not sure 21st century ethics would approve of this but I remember using HP fruity as a young man to clean matted brass on clock dial centres. On the other hand… we’ve been left a quirky legacy by the taxman. Unlike most other antiques, clocks are free of capital gains tax. Thanks to a ruling by the taxman that machinery cannot be seen as a rising investment, it is assumed that any machine (and I understand this may include guns) is exempt from capital gains.

Interesting to see a clock fan using HP and Heinz tomato bottles – both are naturally caustic and were used (probably in the Clerkenwell workshops your mother describes in the 60s/70s) as cleaning agents for getting into crevices in dirty brass! Not sure 21st century ethics would approve of this but I remember using HP fruity as a young man to clean matted brass on clock dial centres.

]]> By: Christopher Proudlove http://writeantiques.com/taxing-times/comment-page-1/#comment-130 Christopher Proudlove Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:22:00 +0000 http://www.writeantiques.com/taxing-times/#comment-130 Dear RGC Many thanks for your comments and sharing your charming story. It reminds me of one of my own anecdotes: as a young collector, I came across a box full of old broken wooden cuckoo clocks. I suspect they had been taken to a restorer but were considered lost causes, so they were his supply of spare parts. My late father was an inveterate tinkerer and when I came home from school one day, he had managed to make up a couple of clocks from the various bits and they were actually hanging on the wall, ticking away and cuckooing at the appropriate times. The amusing thing was, he had no weights to drive the things, so he had been forced to improvise: bottles of Heinz tomato and HP sauces had been purloined from my mother's larder and were suspended from the chains, all performing their duties perfectly. I still have the cuckoo clocks, but the sauces were consumed long ago! Don't sell you clock - memories such as these are too precious. Dear RGC
Many thanks for your comments and sharing your charming story. It reminds me of one of my own anecdotes: as a young collector, I came across a box full of old broken wooden cuckoo clocks. I suspect they had been taken to a restorer but were considered lost causes, so they were his supply of spare parts.
My late father was an inveterate tinkerer and when I came home from school one day, he had managed to make up a couple of clocks from the various bits and they were actually hanging on the wall, ticking away and cuckooing at the appropriate times.
The amusing thing was, he had no weights to drive the things, so he had been forced to improvise: bottles of Heinz tomato and HP sauces had been purloined from my mother’s larder and were suspended from the chains, all performing their duties perfectly.
I still have the cuckoo clocks, but the sauces were consumed long ago!
Don’t sell you clock – memories such as these are too precious.

]]> By: RGC http://writeantiques.com/taxing-times/comment-page-1/#comment-129 RGC Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:17:19 +0000 http://www.writeantiques.com/taxing-times/#comment-129 Thanks for your article. I have a clock very similar to your mahogany example above, but wall mounted with an angled bottom. It has been in my family on my mother's side for about 100 years and came from their pub/hotel in Kent. History includes losing its weight through the bottom as you say, though expertly repaired, falling from the wall when a bomb exploded nearby in WWII followed by a spell in the garden shed until it could be rescued and repaired. The original weight is a delight, with a selection of 'rubbish', though heavy, items embedded in the lead! My mother described to me how she took the large dial on the 'tube' to a clock makers in Clerkenwell, London for repainting in the 1960s/70s. Received many strange looks! My mother told me how, when arriving at the clockmakers, she felt she had been transported back to the days of Dickens as a little hatch was opened in their doorway when she knocked to announce her arrival! The clock has now been removed to storage following 40 years on the wall of our Victorian family home. Is it for sale? Probably not. Another spell in the garden shed I suspect until one of my sons buys a suitable house for it to take pride of place once more! Thanks for your article. I have a clock very similar to your mahogany example above, but wall mounted with an angled bottom. It has been in my family on my mother’s side for about 100 years and came from their pub/hotel in Kent. History includes losing its weight through the bottom as you say, though expertly repaired, falling from the wall when a bomb exploded nearby in WWII followed by a spell in the garden shed until it could be rescued and repaired. The original weight is a delight, with a selection of ‘rubbish’, though heavy, items embedded in the lead! My mother described to me how she took the large dial on the ‘tube’ to a clock makers in Clerkenwell, London for repainting in the 1960s/70s. Received many strange looks! My mother told me how, when arriving at the clockmakers, she felt she had been transported back to the days of Dickens as a little hatch was opened in their doorway when she knocked to announce her arrival! The clock has now been removed to storage following 40 years on the wall of our Victorian family home. Is it for sale? Probably not. Another spell in the garden shed I suspect until one of my sons buys a suitable house for it to take pride of place once more!

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