Philden-Coyne Students’ No. 1 geometry set
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…
WF Stanley catalogues and price lists
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…
More WF Stanley catalogues online
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…
Rule Britannia
When it comes to patented rulers, it's difficult to concieve of anything more basic than this particular example. It consists simply of a pentagonal section ebonised rod with the end…
The art of drawing instruments
The Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, gets its name from the flamboyant baroque imagery that covers 40,000 square feet of its interior walls and ceilings. Designed…
EngSoc
Today's featured set is a very nice quality wallet case originally retailed by the University of Toronto Engineering Society. It was interesting to discover that this society still exists today,…
Hale’s elliptical compass
While hunting around for more background on Taguel's mould-breaking elliptical compass, I came across a long and detailed paper entitled "Elliptographs, and the Application of Elliptical Curves" by Frank J.…
A mysterious elliptical compass
There are some drawing instruments that seem almost designed to stand out from the crowd, be it aesthetically or as the result of a radical departure from established archetypes. One…
An unusual Napier compass
The Napier compass is a particularly compact form of multifunctional drawing instrument that became popular during the second half of the nineteenth century. It is commonly said to have been…
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