Tuesday's puzzle

This being a clock from Sweden, one of two which we own, bought from a now defunct kitchen and homeware store in Upper High Street, here in Epsom, some years ago now. A store which was possibly the hobby of a lady with a high-earning husband.

On the dining table in the aftermath of Sunday lunch to change the battery and reset the time, a slightly fiddly operation, fortunately at what seems like intervals measured in years rather than months.

Noticed today, because fuelled by a few bevy's from the wine operation in Marlborough, NZ, I became very interested in the question of how the numerals got onto the clock face, it seeming to me that they were not all the same, that there was a whiff of hand crafting about the thing.

I assume that at some point there has to be a master copy. Either on paper for conversion by camera to digital or digital in the first place. And in the first case, the paper version might have been produced several times larger than needed, so that the reduced digital image was nice and sharp. The digital master then goes to the printer which prints the clock face.

Option 1, we have a paper master, produced more or less by hand, by an old style commercial or graphic artist. The sort of chap who works with pens and pencils at a large drawing board, helped along by various mechanical contrivances like T-squares, set squares, protractors, dividers and compasses. Numbers either drawn by hand or with the aid of a stencil.

Option 2, we have a digital master, still produced more or less by hand, but using a specialised workstation with a specialised drawing tablet. Perhaps with the capability of drawing lines and circles to provide the framework for the master. Then how do we do the numerals and the ticks around the perimeter?

The placement of the pairs of red numerals is a little uneven, suggesting that even if the numerals were produced by the computer, their placement has been done by hand, perhaps by drag and drop with a mouse, after the fashion of an object in Microsoft's Powerpoint.

And then, the five black '1's at the top of the face, even this morning, do not seem identical to me, particularly as regards the hook at the top. Is this the result of the numerals having been produced by hand, with a pen, or can the artist tell the computer to introduce a little random variation to give the thing a hand crafted look?

I recall reading once that the machines which once mass produced steel cutlery in Sheffield did something of the sort, so that the resultant cutlery could be passed off as hand made, or at least hand finished. With the average consumer having a curious regard for hand - even when one might have thought that machine would do a better job.

All in all, a fruitful topic of conversation next time I come across an artist in a public house.

PS: a little later: I am impressed by Bing, who turned up reference 1 as the first hit, on presentation of the number '1107011846', included at the bottom of the clock face, visible if you click to enlarge. Clearly the right people, even if our particular clocks are no longer in production.

Reference 1: http://www.bengtekdesign.com/.