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BASEL, Switzerland — Strapped into a cockpit-style seat, eyes peering through heavy black goggles, you can almost feel the G-force as you hurtle down the bobsled run, seat rattling and shoulders slamming as you tilt through violent twists and turns.

As soon as you catch your breath, you’re on to the next near-death experience, plunging through deepest outer space, feeling your stomach muscles tighten as you tip into a 90-degree abyss.

The ride may have been a virtual reality promotion for

Samsung’s Gear

smartwatches at the 100th anniversary of the giant

Baselworld

watch fair, which closes Thursday, but it was not a bad metaphor for the watch industry in general of late.

Since the 2008-9 economic meltdown, the watch industry has soared to heady highs (thanks, China) and hit pockets of turbulence (thanks, China), with numerous unforeseen detours along the way. While the wild ride is anything but over, the titans of timepieces did their best to stave off motion sickness and enjoy the biggest, brassiest watch show on earth.

For one magical week each year, the Champagne flows and the celebrities pose as the watch industry makes its pilgrimage to northern Switzerland to revel in its own horological brand of

spring fever.

Baselworld, for those who don’t know a tourbillon from a perpetual calendar, is the

watch industry’s equivalent of the Olympics

— eight days of fierce competition mixed with globally themed pageantry.

More than 100,000 nattily-attired watch lovers, retailers and journalists (yes, even the journalists dress up) representing more than 100 countries stroll a shopping mall-size exhibition hall to check out the latest glimmering wares from hundreds of brands in lavishly appointed booths (that is, “booths,” since some could double as upscale boutique hotels outfitted with Ginza-worthy lounges).

Baselworld, in other words, is a planet unto itself, an otherworldly setting where a $3,000 timepiece actually passes for entry-level and recession seems like a concern for another race of beings. Typically, that is.

“We’re looking now at year three of a downturn for Swiss exports,” said Joe Thompson, the editor of

WatchTime

magazine and a prominent industry analyst.

The avuncular editor, a dead ringer for Alan Alda, rattled off challenges that have shaken the industry: a plunge in oil prices that shook demand in Russia and the Middle East; a crackdown on the age-old practice of, ahem, “gifting” among Chinese businessmen and government officials; financial crises in the eurozone; “Brexit.”

Even America has been a cipher. Despite stock market highs and a new president who promised huge tax cuts to the wealthy (a.k.a., the buyers of five- and six-figure wristwatches), Swiss watch exports to the United States tumbled 26 percent in February, compared with a year ago, according to the

Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.

“There is great uncertainty here,” Mr. Thompson said, and he should know, having covered the fair since the late 1970s.

He was not the only industry sage to detect a more muted tone.

“The crowds are thinner, the watches less daring and expensive, the egos firmly in check,” said Benjamin Clymer, the founder of the influential watch site

Hodinkee, who was enjoying cocktails — to the extent anyone actually “enjoys” a $28 cocktail — with colleagues at the Les Trois Rois hotel on the banks of the Rhine on Friday night.

In a year when a number of familiar brands including Girard-Perregaux, Bremont, Ulysse Nardin and Shinola made other plans, many brands that did turn out emphasized bang for the buck, which is a big change from years past.

Zenith, for instance, which is undergoing a makeover by

Jean-Claude Biver, the president of the LVMH watch division and one of the industry’s noted turnaround artists, trumpeted “aggressive” price cuts in its product presentations. The

Pilot Type 20 Extra Special

model, for example, was slashed to $5,700, from $7,100 (which is not exactly cheap, granted).

“I was encouraged, if not a little amused, by how often the word ‘value’ was used in presentations this year,” Mr. Clymer said. “Certainly, a $39,000 perpetual calendar in platinum from Hermès does feel like a ‘great value’ relative to an $82,000 perpetual calendar in white gold from Patek Philippe when you look at them on paper.”

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“But,” he added, “trying to assert a rational argument to a watch collector about quality and value is wasted breath. The halls of Baselworld is the last place on earth where ‘value’ has meaning.”

Even so, fairgoers did not seem willing to let a little belt-tightening spoil the party. As usual, the giants of the industry held lavish events.

Aristocratic Rolex served fine Bordeaux and goat cheese at the Reithalle Wenkenhof, the 18th-century estate where the tennis champion

Roger Federer, a Basel native, happened to get married in 2009.

Populist Seiko, celebrating its premium Grand Seiko line, showcased the vocal stylings of its chief executive, Shinji Hattori, who took the stage at the Radisson Blu to belt out “Rock Around the Clock” and “Diana” in an Elvis-worthy croon.

Swashbuckling Hublot flew in Depeche Mode, currently in the midst of what seems the 14th comeback of its 37-year history, as a surprise guest to pound out hits like “Personal Jesus” at a lavish dinner with Ferrari (proceeds from the latest Big Bang Unico Depeche Mode, a brawny watch with menacing black studs, benefit charity: water, which promotes clean water in the developing world).

While the big brands dominate the scene at Baselworld, up-and-comers also flock to town looking to make a mark.

Bradley Price, who runs

Autodromo, a cultish Brooklyn brand that makes sleek, retro-tinged racing-style watches, made his first trek to Baselworld. Unable to justify the expense of a formal presentation space, Mr. Price, 36, ended up taking a meeting with one potential retailer using the top of a recycling bin as a table.

“The customer joked that Baselworld might start charging 10 grand to use these as ‘podium-size booths,’” Mr. Price said.

Another young watchmaker who turned up at the Les Trois Rois on Friday night was Michael Wilson, who runs the coolly minimalist brand

Niall

in Kansas City, Mo.

That night’s jaw-dropping cocktail tab might have represented “a significant line item” on his budget, Mr. Wilson said. But the relationships he forged were possible only at Baselworld.

“I told my team, you’ll definitely blow through your per diem,” Mr. Wilson said, “but you’ll also blow through your quarterly projections.”

We came across this clock project which could both benefit many children and adults, and people could have fun while working on clocks to better manage their time. We would love advice on how we can apply this approach to our grandfather clocks or one of of our

Howard Miller Mantel Clocks.

Take a look at this video by Quirky Momma &

Kids Activities Blog, which we think was first posted on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/QuirkyMomma/videos/10154223514835845/

It is modeled after a wall clock that Quirky Momma and/or Kids Activities Blog apparently first saw in a store, and then when she could not find it, got inspired to come up with a Do It Yourself approach.

After School Routine Clock

Here’s what you need to make this after school routine clock:

Wall Clock

Permanent markers (5 colors)

Printed list of activities

Remove the back off the clock so that you can access the face.

Use the markers to color sections of time for the different activities.

Their chosen and proposed schedule is:

4-5 pm Homework Time

5-6 pm Play Time

6-7 pm Dinner Time

7-7:30 pm Bath Time

7:30-8:30 pm Bed Time

Print off your list of activities and color around each section to correspond with the colored section on the clock.

Make sure to hang your list of activities below the clock for easy access.

See the results below:

After School Routine Clock – Wall Clock – Show How we can do same with 1 of our Grandfather Clocks

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On Time

By ALEX WILLIAMS

Two years ago, TAG Heuer grabbed headlines at the giant Baselworld watch fair with a glimpse of the future: a Google-enabled smartwatch,

the Connected, that was considered the first big Swiss counterstrike to the Apple Watch.

This week, the pedigreed Swiss watchmaker again turned heads at Baselworld, but this time, it did so by looking back a half-century.

At a splashy news media conference featuring the actor Patrick Dempsey, TAG Heuer unveiled one of the most talked-about watches of the fair: a reborn version of its classic

Autavia

racing chronograph from 1962, which has become a hot collectible on the vintage market.

Instead of scouring auctions and spending five figures for an actual piece from the Kennedy era, TAG fans can secure a faithful rendition of a watch made famous by auto racing legends like Mario Andretti and Jochen Rindt for $5,150 (on a leather strap) or $5,300 (on a stainless steel bracelet).

Fans of the brand will most likely be pleased to see the meticulous period detailing on this new 55th anniversary model — most notably the so-called reverse panda dial featuring three white subdials on a black dial, a coveted retro design feature often found on vintage Rolex Daytonas that fetch $40,000 or more.

Then again, fans already are sold on this retro Autavia, it seems. This model was born of a marketing stunt last year called the Autavia Cup, in which the company, led by the chief executive Jean-Claude Biver, one of the industry’s most colorful showmen, polled more than 50,000 TAG fans to see which of 16 vintage Autavia models they would like to see brought back.

The Autavia “Rindt,” which harks back to the first sports chronograph created by Jack Heuer, the fourth generation head of the company, won going away.

Sure, vintage snobs will have to put up with a few conspicuous nods toward modernization. The new Autavia is plainly brawnier than the original, with a 42 millimeter case, rather than 39 millimeters. Some purists might be aghast to see the addition of a date window, although this one is artfully hidden down around 6 o’clock.

But in the trade-off, buyers of the modern version also get the new, self-winding Heuer-02 caliber proprietary chronograph movement, an 80-hour power reserve and water resistance to 100 meters.

So, no, the new Autavia is not the latest smartwatch. It is merely a very smart watch.

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HONG KONG — In the early 1990s, Carson Chan persuaded the owner of an automobile garage in Los Angeles to allow him to work there without pay in exchange for access to its jacks, hoists and air compressors.

Mr. Chan spent long hours there, tinkering on the Porsches that he raced on weekends at tracks around Southern California. “You’re in an environment that if you kind of like cars, you’ll dive right into it, and I did,” he said.

But when Mr. Chan moved back to his birthplace, Hong Kong, in 1997, he was unemployed and automobile-less, he said. So he pursued another mechanical pursuit: building a wristwatch from its parts.

“I found out that all you need is a tiny table and some tools, and you could work on it like a car,” he said.

Two decades later, Mr. Chan, 48, is an established figure in Asia’s luxury watch scene. And as head of the greater China mission of the

Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, a nonprofit industry group in Switzerland, he offers watch training courses for watch professionals who target Chinese clients.

Mr. Chan also has a quirky watch collection that includes nearly 100 specimens, some of which he assembled himself from obscure or antique components. He deconstructed several 1936 Rolex pocket watches, for example, and put their movements inside some military-inspired watch cases that he asked a local factory to manufacture.

“What sets him apart is his in-depth technical knowledge,” said

Sean Li, the Hong Kong editorial director of

Revolution, a luxury watch magazine based in Singapore. “He’s one of the few watch collectors I know who actually has a watchmaking bench where he practices his skills, and gets hands-on experience on what he is teaching.”

Mr. Chan’s Omega Speedmaster Mark 3 in stainless steel.

Pierfrancesco Celada for The New York Times

A report by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said that although Swiss timepiece exports fell in 2016, monthly export volumes rose in December for the first time in 18 months. It said the China market, which had experienced an upturn since the summer, had also grown that month.

Mr. Chan said one upshot of generally weak watch demand is that prices for new models have been falling. For example, he said, a 2017 Ulysse Nardin Marine Tourbillon Grand Feu Enamel sells for about 22,000 Swiss francs, or $21,930, but a new version of a similar watch would have cost at least 40,000 Swiss francs in 2013.

Buyers in Asia are taking more of an interest in the technical aspects of watchmaking, in part because they are increasingly buying timepieces for personal use instead of as gifts, Mr. Chan said. But he added that many retailers remained stuck in a discount-driven sales approach that is light on technical specifics and leaves some collectors cold.

That includes him, he said.

“It’s as if you go into B.M.W. and the guy tells you how good it handles,” Mr. Chan said recently at his studio, a refurbished loft on the 15th floor of an industrial building in the Wong Chuk Hang district. “I ask, ‘Have you driven it?’ ” And he says, ‘No, I don’t have a driver’s license.’ ”

Mr. Chan said that he began working in the watch industry in 1999 as the Asia representative for the auction house Bonhams. He said that a former boss and fellow Porsche-racing aficionado in California had given his name to a Bonhams executive who had asked, “Do you know anybody in Hong Kong who knows cars and watches?”

Mr. Chan said his initial work at Bonhams consisted mainly of shipping catalogs around Asia and translating for Chinese-speaking clients. The Asia mailing address in the company’s catalogs from that period was his 400-square-foot apartment in Hong Kong.

That work led to a job in 2003 as the general Asia-Pacific manager for

Richard Mille, then a new watch company based in Switzerland. But when he started, he said, the watch market was at rock bottom because the region was recovering from the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998 and a 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, known as SARS.

“Nobody cared about watches, so that was a big challenge,” Mr. Chan said. “But then, you know, it depends on whether you’re an optimistic person or not. When things are at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.”

The market eventually took off, Mr. Chan said, and he returned to Bonhams as head of watches and Asia managing director. From 2007 until his departure in 2014, he said, what began as a skeletal operation in Hong Kong grew to one that had 45 employees spread across China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.

Mr. Chan said that his strategic approach at Bonhams was to bring new products, such as whiskey, cognac and Leica cameras, to the auction market. He said he also promoted watches by independent brands like Richard Mille and

MB&F. “Today the market has changed — all the auction houses are accepting these brands,” he said of such smaller, independent watch labels. “But we did the first push.”

Mr. Chan’s friends say that he takes a similarly independent approach to collecting.

“Every watch he wears has a unique story,” said Winston Koo, a private collector in Hong Kong who has known Mr. Chan for more than 15 years. “That makes me wonder what other horological treasures he has stashed away in his safe.”

On a recent morning at his studio, Mr. Chan spread some of his favorite watches out on a wood table that overlooked his workbench, a cigar humidor, a rack of wineglasses and a pair of vintage Veloset and Moto Guzzi motorcycles.

At one point, he gestured to a pair of watches by the German company

A. Lange & Söhne

that were made in 1892 and 2004. On first glance, they appeared to have very little in common. But Mr. Chan turned them over and showed that their movements, made of German silver, were uncannily similar.

He also held up some Omega Speedmaster watches from the 1960s — the same model, he said, that Neil Armstrong had worn during his 1969 moonwalk. Mr. Chan said that he had gone through a phase of collecting Speedmasters from the 1960s and 1970s and that he had always been fascinated by their design.

“It looks like they’re from the future, but they were made 40 years ago,” he said.

Mr. Chan said that on a practical level, mechanical watches are clearly outdated in the smartphone era, just as human-driven cars may soon become irrelevant in the era of self-driving ones. However, he said, focusing on the history and technology behind watchmaking may help brands survive for many more generations.

He said the key was learning to see watches as art pieces, not just machines.

“Why do you wear a watch? You don’t need it — you have your phone,” he said. “So it has to connect with the consumer more deeply.”

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When three guests spent more than $4 million on new Jaeger-LeCoultre watches during a recent visit to the company’s heritage gallery in Switzerland, their host, Philippe Bonay, the company’s North American president, was stunned to realize the house’s archives had, in a way, produced such lucrative sales.

Almost every major luxury watch brand has an archive. Some are elaborate public museums; others are the equivalent of storage rooms stuffed with handwritten watchmakers’ notes and old records. But in recent years many of these collections have been playing expanded roles in their brands’ commercial development, serving as attractions for client events, fodder for exhibitions and generally spreading brand recognition.

For Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, Chopard’s co-president, watch museums seem to be money-spinners. He said they give clients a historic perspective and “everyone wants to be reassured when making a big purchase.”

In Chopard’s case, it may be double the reassurance.

The company has a museum of Chopard watches, including 19th-century pocket watches and glittering Happy Diamonds timepieces, open weekdays on a limited schedule at its Geneva headquarters.

And in 2006, Mr. Scheufele opened the L.U.CEUM, a museum whose name plays on the initials of the company founder, Louis-Ulysse Chopard, and the Latin word lyceum, a place of learning. The center, at the Chopard factory in Fleurier, Switzerland, is open by appointment only. It showcases Mr. Scheufele’s own collection of timepieces dating as far back as the Renaissance and as recently as Chopard’s current L.U.C collection.

“It puts us into the context of history and shows we continue in the tradition of watchmaking,” Mr. Scheufele said. “And underlines that we are all about movement manufacturing, so it helps Chopard be recognized as a serious watchmaking brand.”

It works for sales, too, he said, although he declined to be specific. “Almost every visit — maybe six months later or maybe immediately — have resulted in sales, including sales that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”

While most brand museums are free or restricted to V.I.P. clients,

the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva

charges 10 Swiss francs ($9.90) for anyone older than 18 to see its collection of timepieces from the 16th century as well as watches made by the company since its founding in 1839. The museum drew 45,026 visitors in 2016, and

Thierry Stern, Patek Philippe’s president, said in an email that the fees help cover maintenance costs.

Even relatively new brands are tapping into the resource. Nick English, co-founder of

Bremont, the 15-year-old British watchmaking company, said the company plans to open its archive at its Henley-on-Thames headquarters next year so “collectors can see the money and effort we’ve spent on our products.”

Breguet has three in-store museums, in Paris, Zurich and Shanghai. It’s an invaluable opportunity to bring in “top-level people” and prospective new clients, said Emmanuel Breguet, the company’s head of patrimony and seventh-generation descendant of its founder, Abraham-Louis Breguet. “We show new watches with the watches of the past in the hope of selling more.

“It’s an opportunity to have a discussion that is more than a business or sales discussion, which is special to clients,” he said. “They feel that they are in a club, which makes them more loyal.” He also noted that books are good supplements for such displays as “it is easier to buy a book than a watch.”

The Shanghai boutique’s display features timepieces, antique watchmakers’ tools and reproductions of some company documents. “The store’s in front of the Langham hotel,” Mr. Breguet said, “so the museum attracts clients from this hotel and others, and brings in the Chinese who are traveling inside China, as we are the only watch brand with a museum in the city.”

In China, which top-end watch companies have eyed eagerly in recent years despite the sales deterrent of Beijing’s crackdown on gifting, several brands have made a special effort to promote their archives and have found receptive audiences. As Mr. Bonay of Jaeger-LeCoultre said: “Western Europe has grown up around watches, but there are many markets around the world like Asia, certain parts of Latin America and the Middle East where high watchmaking is new, so the need for educating people through our archives is enormous.”

At Omega, for example, its two-year-old Planet Omega exhibition will visit nine Chinese cities this year, including Ningbo, a port south of Shanghai with about eight million residents in its region; Tianjin, a northeastern port of more than 15 million, and Shanghai, with more than 25 million.

“Exhibitions bring attention to us,” said Raynald Aeschlimann, president and chief executive of Omega. It has mounted traveling shows of pieces from its archive of more than 7,000 watches for the last 10 years.

They are always installed in places with lots of traffic, he said. “We hold them close to our stores and to the stores of our partners because they bring people in,” Mr. Aeschlimann said, “because one day, maybe a month later or 10 years later, one of these people will buy one of our products, so it creates an opportunity of knowing us better.”

Cartier has what it considers a cost-effective way to maximize use of its 500-piece heritage watch collection, usually kept in a Geneva vault. Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s head of image, style and heritage, said the company makes pieces available to cultural institutions — “and they pay for everything.”

The Sonvilier pocket watch by Louis-Ulysse Chopard, the company’s first watch. It is on display in the L.U.CEUM museum.

Reto Albertalli for The New York Times

Case in point: The Design Museum in London, which opened in a new Kensington location in November, wanted to display some Cartier watches on a permanent basis, Mr. Rainero said. Instead, the house worked with the museum to create an exhibition showcasing the brand’s association with travel, scheduled from May 25 to July 23.

Panerai’s chief executive,

Angelo Bonati, has been expanding the company’s archive since he joined the company in 1997 shortly after its purchase by Richemont, then called the Vendôme Group. What had been a timepiece supplier to the Italian Navy is now a fine watchmaker, with a 100-object archive, but Mr. Bonati prefers to exhibit it only every four to five years. “If we regularly show the archive, people will lose interest,” he said.

Lucia Boscaini, heritage director of Bulgari, which has been expanding its watch archive since 2011, echoed the sentiment that lending watches to museums can produce business.

She cited the company’s loan of some 1950s and 1960s ladies’ watches for the “Bellissima: Italy and High Fashion” exhibition last year at the NSU Art Museum, part of Nova Southeastern University in Florida. The event “brought in an art and fashion crowd to see our pieces who we wouldn’t attract alone,” she said, adding that sales of the B.zero1 collection at the nearby Bulgari store were likely related.

As brands recognize the financial benefits of their archives, some have begun to spend significant amounts on expansion.

Blancpain, for example, placed the high bid of $225,000 to buy back its Art Deco-style diamond and platinum watch once owned by Marilyn Monroe during a sale of her possessions last November by Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles. The timepiece had been expected to sell for $80,000 to $120,000.

And

Tiffany & Co.

paid $40,000 in September during an online Christie’s auction to secure its yellow gold and diamond wristwatch owned by Nancy Reagan. The sale price had been expected to be $2,000.

In February 2016 at the French auction house Artcurial, Breguet bought one of nine 1930s dashboard chronographs it had made for Ettore Bugatti, a sale that led to a joint client event with Bugatti in July in Japan. “Some invitees were car fans but not fans of Breguet,” Mr. Breguet said, “so this acquisition really opened up the car market for us.”

Buying back watches can lead to new sales, too, as dormant relationships are reactivated and people who sell vintage watches buy a new one, Ms. Boscaini of Bulgari said. And new client services sometime result. For example, Vacheron Constantin now finds and restores historical pieces for clients for a premium fee and mounted a touring show of some of these pieces last year.

More watch collectors with more knowledge has meant increased competition and higher prices for brands buying back their watches — although the internet also has helped.

“Collectors see we have a museum and contact me directly, who would never have come to us otherwise,” said Willy Schweizer, Girard-Perregaux’s curator. He has expanded the company archive from a suitcase full of random watches in 1984 to a collection that includes 350 timepieces, 100 related machines and the original gold medal document presented to its Esmeralda pocket watch at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, the world’s fair in Paris. The company is opening a display space later this year in the

JeanRichard

Museum

in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.

Buyback strategies differ by brand. Omega looks for rare and exclusive models, while Girard-Perregaux goes for unusual designs. Cartier adds to its archive when “we find an earlier model,” Mr. Rainero said, while Breguet searches for special examples from its collections, inventions and any watch initially sold to a celebrity. That way, Mr. Breguet said, “there is something that fascinates any client around the world.”

There are only a few pieces in a household that are versatile enough to be used in practically every application.

Clocks

are one of those pieces; able to be hung on the wall, placed in a corner, or put atop a variety of furniture. In fact, in purchasing a clock, consumers are essentially making an investment in that they will likely be able to move the clock around and use it in a variety of ways throughout their ownership of the clock.

* A mantel clock can just as easily sit on a bedroom dresser as it can in a living room over a fireplace. Because mantel clocks are portable they are able to be repositioned whenever a homeowner chooses; this makes them versatile pieces that offer flexibility and creativity to those who are decorating a home.

Mantel clocks

are manufactured in a variety of styles – everything from traditional to contemporary – and can add a hint of glamour or sophistication.

* A wall clock can just as easily hang on the wall in a family room as it can in a kitchen setting. Some wall clocks resemble miniature grandfather clocks – meant to hang on the wall; others are round faced designs that are more contemporary and lend themselves well to more casual rooms.

* A grandfather clock is welcome – and appropriate – anywhere in a home. As versatile pieces, grandfather clocks can sit in an entranceway where homeowners and visitors are welcomed immediately upon entering the home; or they can sit in a library or dining room.

There’s nothing like a roaring fire in a fireplace; for many homeowners a fireplace is an absolute necessity; that which sets their home apart, creates a welcome focal point around which their family gathers, and warms their rooms on cold winter nights. For many, just as important as the fireplace itself is the mantel under which it sits. A mantel can frame a fireplace appropriately and add a sense of character and style to a room specifically, and a home at large.

Decorating a mantel is a personal reflection of style. There are some homeowners for whom a mantel is simply not complete without a mantel clock. The history of mantel clocks began in late 1700s France when this style of clock was first created. Mantel clocks were quite unique at the time due to their small size and ability to be moved from place to place.

Mantel clocks

can sit on tabletops, shelves, or in a variety of locations throughout a home; but on fireplace mantels they are especially attractive. Those searching for a mantel clock through 1-800-4CLOCKS will find a variety of styles from which to choose – square, round, made from wood, wrought iron, different style numbers, and hands – the choices are nearly endless when it comes to choosing a mantel clock.