Stepping into Mike and Doc’s Tick Tock Clock Shop, the customer is immersed in deep family history and an increasingly rare trade.

The shop, which has a generally well-to-do clientele who own older wooden wall and grandfather clocks, has relocated more than once, and is finally back in business.

Located in the heart of Mattoon, Mike and Doc’s is the third endeavor of Mike Davis as a purveyor of horology, the science of keeping time.

“Through experience I’ve found that I’m kind of like a luxury service,” Davis said. “The people I deal with are generally older and affluent financially.”

And for good reason, given the history one usually finds in an antique clock, and the sentimental value a family heirloom holds.

“Another thing about clocks is that they don’t really have a lot of monetary value. The sentimental value is worth more than you can imagine,” Davis said. “I don’t even understand it. They just have a lot of value to people.”

Given the emotional value of the clocks he repairs, Davis understands he must work with careful precision to ensure that each clock is properly adjusted and put back together.

Looking at Davis’ workbench, one sees clock gears and levers carefully placed around the table to prevent any mix-ups.

Off to the side, two stands are placed with carefully balanced weights and mechanisms from grandfather clocks.

“There are guys that will work on your grandfather clock if you bring it to them. You have to know how to move the clock without damaging it,” he said. “There’s several things you have to do, otherwise you will have a piece of junk when you get to your destination.”

He spends approximately 16 to 18 hours each day working in his shop and making house calls for customers, Davis said.

He said he usually makes house calls when customers cannot bring their clock to him or simply want him to come to their home.

“If they can’t get out or if they just want me to, I’ll go and pick up the clock,” Davis said.

Davis said his shop is the most advanced clock shop out of the available ones in the area.

“There are other people who repair clocks,” Davis said. “But I know I am the only one that is as advanced as mine is. I have a full miniature machine shop here. If someone has a clock that needs to be taken apart, he brings it to me.”

Apart from the technical side of the clock shop, Mike and Doc’s holds an interesting history itself, having experienced a difficult journey from its inception in late 2007.

Davis planned to begin the clock shop with his partner and mentor, Henry “Doc” Bell, and did so after attending school at Quincy’s Gem City School of Horology.

However, shortly after obtaining a new location in the center of Mattoon in 2009, Doc contracted pneumonia and died in early 2010.

“That was a terrible blow,” Davis said.

He then packed up the shop and moved to a new location.

Davis’ time was cut short there as well, however, when a triple house fire damaged the garage in which Davis had located the shop. Luckily the damage was minimal, and Davis was eventually able to move a third time to his current location.

Given the constant uprooting, Davis said that he is making efforts to reach out to both old and new customers.

“I don’t really make customers, I make friends,” Davis stated. “The people that I’ve met so far seem to either read the paper or look up phone numbers in the phone book.(so) I’m just trying to get articles in the papers.”

Davis also mentioned that he is planning to hold a grand opening at a later date to let people know he is back in business.

Given all of the hardship he has faced and the work he needs to complete, Davis keeps a positive outlook on the profession in which he has invested so much time. When asked what his favorite aspect about running the clock shop was, Davis did not hesitate to answer.

“The stories. ‘It’s Grandma’s clock; it’s Grandpa’s clock; this clock came over in 1799 from England.the weights were melted down during the Civil War for bullets’. Things like that. You’d be surprised at the stories you hear, and the people. I’m an industrial strength people person. And, as I said, I don’t make customers, I make friends.”

Greg Sainer can be reached at 581-7942 or gpsainer@eiu.edu

Mike Davis, owner of Mike and Doc’s Tick Tock Clock Shop, writes down contact information of the owner of a clock just dropped off at his repair shop on June 2 in Mattoon. (Jordan Boner

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