The name Rotring will forever be synonymous with the tubular technical pens on which their business was built, so it easy to forget that they were also highly regarded for…
The other day I broke my own rule of not buying any more of those turn of the century imported student-quality sets sold in vast quantities, primarily by Jackson Brothers, but…
Before the advent of CAD, laser printers, photocopiers and even that old favourite Letraset, stencil plates were widely used to apply standardised and decorative lettering to technical drawings. They were…
Today's post showcases a set of six W.F. Stanley vulcanite chain scales and matching offsets, something that had been on my wish list for a long time. Vulcanite (aka ebonite)…
The Bennett "Marvel" Geometric compass is a classic example of the torturous development and ultimate failure of an overcomplicated solution to a problem that never really existed in the first…
Don't worry, this isn't another of those spam emails advertising protein shakes or the like. I'm talking weights. Ship weights. Admiralty pattern. These were the extremely heavy lead blocks (variously…
Not to be confused with Galileo's compass, the Staedtler Galileo could be considered one of the last radical redesigns of the modern compass, literally turning the usual fine-adjustment spindle concept…
School geometry sets have always been tangential to my main interest in professional drawing instruments, but occasionally something odd will catch my eye. This particular set attracted no attention on…
From one of the first Stanley catalogues to one of the last, the envelope of material that came with my Amsler no. 5 planimeter included a rare price list dated February 1976. This five-page…
While researching a couple of new W.F. Stanley finds this weekend, I happened upon a couple of very exciting early sources (well, exciting for me anyway) that had until now…