Zebrawood Clock
Nature had one job here. It did not underperform.
In 1773, a shipment arrived at the British customs house that stopped the paperwork cold.
The manifest said zebrawood. The clerks had never seen it before. Neither had most of the cabinetmakers it was bound for — but they understood immediately what they were looking at. Pale golden wood, shot through with bold dark brown stripes running parallel and relentless from one end of the board to the other. Exactly like the animal. Exactly that dramatic. English furniture makers put it to work without delay, and it commanded premium prices until the supply from the Caribbean coast ran dry thirteen years later.
The Zebrawood on this clock comes from a different source — the tropical forests of Gabon and Cameroon in West Africa, where the trees grow to 150 feet and develop trunks four feet across before any saw ever touches them. This is the authentic article, known in other markets as Zebrano or Zingana, and the stripe pattern you're looking at is not a veneer, not a print, not an approximation. It is the grain of the wood itself — alternating bands of dense dark fiber and lighter golden heartwood, running straight and true because this face was quartersawn precisely to show them at their most dramatic.
Four solid brass hour markers sit at the cardinal points. The hands are matte black — slender, pointed, cutting cleanly across the striped face without apology. At 12 inches, this clock is compact and absolutely relentless. There is nothing quiet about it and it was never trying to be.
- Face: Solid Zebrawood (Zebrano / Zingana)
- Hour markers: Solid brass inlay — cardinal positions only
- Hands: Matte black
- Diameter: 12 inches
- Movement: Precision quartz
- Finish: Natural Finish
- Handmade — each clock is one of a kind
Gabon to your wall. Two hundred and fifty years in the making.
