The company was founded by Johannes Schlenker, then passed down through the family. In 1892 production was 162,000 clocks.The name was changed in 1919 to Kienzle Uhrenfabriken and the company merged with Thomas Haller in 1929
In 1939 had 3500 employees.
Tranferred to China in 1997. Now part of Highway Holdings Ltd
Kienzle Time (HK) Ltd tell me that they still manufacture clocks of high grade.
Eric Watts has kindly passed on additional information he obtained from the Deutches Uhrenmuseum:
Dr. Johannes Graf wrote
"So far as I know, no book on the history of Kienzle is available yet, either in German or English.
There is a small brochure printed in 1908 by the factory of Schlenker & Kienzle about the first 25 years of the clock factory. In that booklet in German one can read something about the history. I will try to tell you the essentials of that text.
In 1822 Johannes Schlenker began to run a clockshop at Schwenningen. He made typical Black Forest clocks with wooden works and a lacquered shield, the so-called "Lackschilduhren".
Johannes Schlenker, born in 1782, died in 1864, He had three sons who were involved in the clockshop. On April 18th 1883 the grandson of Johannes Schlenker Karl Johannes and the husband of his daughter Jakob Kienzle became directors of the family run business. They started producing clocks in an industrial way.
The brandmark of the famous Schlenker & Kienzle clocks was a wheel with two wings. In the first years they sold their clocks mainly in Germany and Austria. In 1887 they founded another factory in Komotau (Austria). Before 1908 several other factories and sales offices in Germany, France, England and Italy were built. In 1908 three quarters of all clocks were exportated.
Until 1893 the factory only produced clocks with massive plates. Then they started to produce also cheaper clockworks with skeleton plates in the way most american clocks were made, the so-called "Amerikaneruhren". Between 1883 and 1907 they made 2,301,240 clocks with massive plates, and between 1894 and 1907 they made 5,327,450 clocks in the american way.
Yours sincerely Dr. Johannes Graf
Deutsches Uhrenmuseum