Object Details
- Keuffel & Esser Co.
- Description
- The handle on this metal instrument is connected to the point and can be pulled out of the cylinder that is the compass's main leg. The other leg is screwed to the cylinder with a metal slat. A screw goes through this leg and can be loosened or tightened to adjust the radius of a circle drawn with the compass. A second screw adjusts the tube that holds a pencil point. Draftsmen used the hairspring compass to precisely draw small circles.
- Keuffel & Esser, an American maker and dealer of slide rules and drawing instruments, donated this object to the Smithsonian in 1971. Part of a paper tag received with the object has been lost, but the remaining portion suggests this instrument may have come from Leipzig, Germany. None of the compasses offered in K&E catalogs in 1909, 1921, or 1936 resemble this instrument.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of Keuffel & Esser Company
- ca 1900
- ID Number
- MA.335261
- accession number
- 306012
- catalog number
- 335261
- Object Name
- compass
- compass, drawing
- Physical Description
- metal (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 1.1 cm x 12.1 cm x 2.3 cm; 7/16 in x 4 3/4 in x 29/32 in
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Science & Mathematics
- Dividers and Compasses
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Mathematics
- Drafting, Engineering
- Drawing Instruments
- Record ID
- nmah_904334
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a7-3935-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
