Object Details
- Keuffel & Esser Co.
- Description
- This tarnished German silver bow pencil has a ring connecting the instrument to its ridged cylindrical handle. It is marked: KEUFFEL & ESSER CO. (/) GERMANY. The disc adjusting the instrument's width is between the legs. Thumbscrews on the back of one leg and the front of the other permit adjustments to the height of the pencil and pricker points. The instrument has no pencil lead.
- The instrument does not appear in K&E's 1892 or 1909 catalogs. K&E sold a similar bow compass from at least 1921 to at least 1936, but that instrument was made in the United States and had bolts in each leg at the ends of the bow screw. Therefore, this object may have been imported before 1892.
- References: Catalogue and Price-List of Keuffel & Esser Co., 36th ed. (New York, 1921), 92s; Catalogue and Price-List of Keuffel & Esser Co., 38th ed. (New York, 1936), 141.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of Robert B. Condon
- late 19th century
- ID Number
- 1991.0793.02
- accession number
- 1991.0793
- catalog number
- 1991.0793.02
- Object Name
- bow pencil
- compass, drawing
- Physical Description
- german silver (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 14 cm x 3.4 cm x 1.4 cm; 5 1/2 in x 1 11/32 in x 9/16 in
- place made
- Germany
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Science & Mathematics
- Dividers and Compasses
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Mathematics
- Drawing Instruments
- Record ID
- nmah_904317
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a7-4c3a-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
