It was only a matter of time before Shawn Jones got his hands on antique clocks, and he admits as much with the name of his new business.
“A Matter of Time” Antique Clock Restoration is what Jones, of Thorsby, is calling the shop he recently opened in the upstairs portion of Kinzley’s Cupcakes in downtown Clanton.
A mechanic by trade, Jones has spent decades fixing cars, manipulating gears and learning all about the inner workings of different machines.
But four years ago, he added clocks to his list of gadgets to repair, restore and collect.
As he watched his uncle take apart an old clock one day, Jones realized he wanted to be the person to put it back together.
“He tutored me for probably about six months,” Jones said of his uncle. “It was off and running after that. It was easy for me to pick it up and learn it.”
Jones started scouring antique stores, estate sales and yard sales for old clocks to buy and restore.
“Whenever I first started this,” he said, “It was all I could think about, all the time.”
Jones began taking Shawn Paul, his younger son, with him on clock searches.
“I’ve been carrying him around ever since he was a toddler to look at clocks,” Jones said. “He gets real excited about it. He’s picked out his own clocks. He wants to work on them and everything else.”
As Jones’ passion and expertise in clock restoration grew, so did his reputation among his friends as a “Mr. Fix-It” for timepieces that had lost their tick.
“That’s how we kind of got to be friends,” said Shelley Barrett, owner of Kinzley’s Cupcakes. “He fixed one of my clocks in a matter of minutes. I said, ‘You need to make it a business.’”
When Jones’ personal collection of more than 300 clocks became too large for his house, Barrett offered to store several clocks at her house. He has also moved quite a few into his space above Kinzley’s.
But beyond finding enough space, Jones said he struggles with choosing which clocks to keep and which clocks to sell.
“I wish I had room to put them all in here,” Jones said, gazing around the shop at his clocks clicking and chiming at various intervals. “I like just about all of them.”
His collection includes German cuckoo clocks, American-made clocks, English clocks, Spanish clocks, kitchen clocks, banjo clocks, grandfather clocks and many more.
“When I take on a hobby, I like to know everything there is about it,” he said.
That includes the stories behind the clocks.
Tucked inside one of the wall clocks Jones bought and repaired was a love letter from a man to his wife.
“You open it up, and you never know what you’re going to find inside of one,” he said. “I’ve found business cards from the 1800s.”
Another clock Jones found in Montgomery allegedly had been destroyed by ghosts four times.
“It was all to pieces because they kept rolling it down the stairs,” he said. “Maybe the grandkids got a hold of it. No one would own up to it.”
Although he can’t bear to part with all of his clocks, Jones is happy to display as many as he can at his shop.
Pick one out, and ask him if it has a story. Chances are, he’ll have a few minutes to spare.
“When I first started collecting them, I thought they were going to be hard to find,” Jones said. “They’re out there. If you know the right place to look, you’ll find them.”
To find out more about “A Matter of Time,” call Jones at (205) 217-9411 or Shelley Barrett at (205) 217-3096.