The earliest type of Vienna regulator was of course made in Vienna,Auatria in the first and second quarters of the 19th c.(roughly,Biedermeir period) and were fairly to very plain cased clocks,weight driven,very finely made with large single piece (very difficult at the time ) or two piece enamel dials, elegant hands and the larger examples were often constructed to run for up to a year on a winding.
The style was much admired and copied in more basic fashion but retaining the qualities of fine clock making with elegance of case and what we might call the second generation of Viennas were made around the 1850s, still in Vienna. The movement mounting for these clocks was most commonly four posts that fitted holes in the backplate of the movement and the slots in the top side of the posts located the movement so to remove one needs to lift then pull out,Easy and neat.Some movements had a pair of brass rails with slats that enabled the movement to be slid out after releasing latches or screws.
As the style became popular all over Europe the German clock makers of the traditional clock making areas such as the Schwartzwald started to produce "Vienna " style clocks with makers such as Gustav Becker, Lenzkirch, Mauthe and many others producing a style of vienna that diverged from the simplicity and elegance of the earliest clocks into ever more complicated decoration in ever heavier styles as the century and its tastes changed..Although there were exceptions it is possible to imagine a smooth evolutionary tree of design from light,elegant and thin to fat bulbous and complicated and the place on the scale dates the clock.
Like all antique dating processes this is subject to a host of exceptions with late elegant and early fatter varieties and all that one can say for sure is that although it is impossible to confuse an early clock with a late clock there is a lot of mixed ground in the middle.The profusion of detachable multi part tops and unpluggable finials are typical of the German product and usually they were shipped with all the tops and finials inside the case.By the end of the 19th c. you may find that the movement stands on a seatboard with wooden runners to slide the movement in and out and this style is universal on the later oblong box shaped clocks that replaced the vienna style in the early years of the 20th c.
The spring driven movement was introduced in the latter part of the 19th c.and it is in the springers that quality and style tend to take their biggest dives with some really horrid but very cheap small springers being made.Even the latest weight driven clocks retained a better quality movement even if the cases went all fat,ornate and lumpy. In 1910 when the dollar was 5 to the pound, a decent looking German made two weighter cost about four pounds and a springer about two pounds ten shillings, with the new style box clocks costing about he same as a springer for a half striker and the same as a weighter for a Westminster chimer.
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