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Unusual pair of early dividers

rivett608

Diamond
Joined
Oct 25, 2002
Location
Kansas City, Mo.
As most of you know I have a weakness for tools that are old, pretty and especially of a unusual design. I just picked up off French ebay a pair of dividers that is different from anything I have seen in collections, museums or books. I am assuming they are from a drafting set, look early 18th c. to me and might be German, they have a much heavier feel than many of the English and French examples I have. They are 7 1/2" long, brass with steel tips. It is the square blocks that strike me as unusual. Any ideas or have you seen anything this shape?

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Not really.... the "finger spaces" are not really that well developed and don't really fit ones fingers, also they are not as deep as the usually are.
 
Thanks, Some good ideas but they don't quite fit........ these are a little too short to be dagger dividers, you just can't get a good grip on them....... see this pair by Tesseact (which has great rare stuff) for a description of a dagger divider just in case you thought the real thing didn't exist....... btw, the old museum of the history of science now renamed has some great pairs and these are quite rare.

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TESSERACT -- Antique Scientific Instruments -- Surveying and Drafting

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As to the thought of a nut cracker or hammer I thought about that as these do have quite a bit of mass to them, notice the size of my thumb compared to the hinge? youcan see it is much heavier than a normal pair of dividers. However if this was the intent they were never used...... there would be little dents in the soft brass ends...... I also thought a draftsman could use it to hammer in his thumb tacks to hold his drawing down but I can't find any evidence thumb tacks were ever used that far back......

They appear to made as about all were in that period..... roughly cast and them filed to fit and shape, Also note the short steel tips, their short size is consistent with early rather than late 18th century.....

So the mystery continues....
 
Dividers that could be used as a dagger? Gee, I had no idea drafting or navigating could be so dangerous!

As for the real purpose of the blocks, I'd say they are just to help spread the legs. Don't forget, people were a LOT smaller back then; the indents might have fit their fingers just fine.
 
Dangerous dividers??, reminds me of high school: the technical drawing class had these 18" or so oak blackboard compass/dividers with a split brass tube to hold chalk or another point. The teacher had been throwing chalk at an unruly student for a while without result. The teacher eventually snapped and threw the wood compass at the student, the compass was folded closed and spun across the room and stuck in the wall point first next to the terrified student's head. The student and rest of the class was attentive for months thereafter.

I can imagine it would be handy having such dual purpose tools as the divider/dagger on hand in the days of sailing ships along with the duck's foot pistol for mutineers.
 
BTW These are what navigational dividers look like..... and they can be used with one hand..... from my collection,probably late 18th century...

Still any ideas of the ones in the OP?

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