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Tiny calipers.....

rivett608

Diamond
Joined
Oct 25, 2002
Location
Kansas City, Mo.
I guess you can't use these if the boss tells you to keep your hands far from your work....... they are both about 1 3/4" long, one is a Stevens & Co helical coil type patented on Feb 8 1870 and the other is by B & S and even has it's own little leather case......... now believe it or not they made calipers even smaller than these but they were watch fob charms to keep on your pocket watch chain......
helicstevens.jpg

babyBS.jpg
 
I did'ent know Paul Bunyon was a "hobby machinist", I do know he cut that wood and built that there workbench though! I knew their was something about that guy I liked!. :rolleyes:
 
I was just playing around with the very well working search feature and came across some old posts of mine.... thought I might give some a bump that appear to have been missed..... hope you don't mind.

BTW does anyone have the smaller ones?
 
Mic Addict:

"huge list of things I saw at the flea market"

Ah! So I'm not the only one who has NON-buyer's remorse!!! Let that be a lesson to all!!! If in doubt, buy it. Don't put it back down on the flea market table while you think about it; I'm RIGHT BEHIND YOU, waiting to purchase it. I've been looking over your shoulder as you've been drooling over it.

I could make a list as long as my arm of things I failed to buy at Fleas. The one on that would most likely strike the most chords on this list was a boxed die plate set that had to be pre-Civil War. Put it down to think about it and POOF! Off it went with another Flea Marketeer.

Rivett608:

Those are wicked cute calipers.......

John Ruth
 
South bend
Thats a good one. Good advice too.
I passed up an excellent condition universal square marked ' J.R. Brown & Sharpe'. Thats one of the oldest B&S marks and the guy only wanted 12 bucks for it.
I have also done the opposite. Saw a guy looking at a 1930's milk bottle that was from a dairy right down the street from my house. He asked how much it was and the dealer said 5 bucks.
As soon as he put it down i snatched it up thinking to myself ' heh, fool'. When i got it home there was a crack in the bottom. Oh well.
 
Getting back to calipers: What other tiny calipers might one encounter? Meaning, what other brands made itty-bitty ones like this?

Before I saw this posting, I thought I had all the calipers I could possibly need, but now I realize that I "need" a really small set consisting of interior, exterior and pointed dividers. ;) Maybe a tiny hermaphrodite caliper, too. I might even need more than one so that I have the Fay style, the round cross-section "Toolmaker's" style, and the Yankee style in addition to the friction-joint style.

Yeah, all of a sudden I don't have nearly enough calipers.

John Ruth
 
"Yeah, all of a sudden I don't have nearly enough calipers.".... it doesn't matter how many you have it just isn't enough..... don't even think you can ever satisfy this urge......

""huge list of things I saw at the flea market".... oh ya... every collector has those things haunting them for life..... my list is not too long but oh how painful and just like it was yesterday..... examples include....

A Art Deco machinist's tool chest that was lunch box size.... shop made with carved out places for his mikes etc.... $ 100.... that was in 1986 at Shupps grove in Adamstown Pa.... I can still tell you right where that dealer was set up..... even went back the next week and a few after that looking for it.... keep in mind a $ 100 for a shop made box back then was huge money.... you could find a full Gerstner back then for that money.... I passed it because it just seemed too much....

A vinaigrette in it's original case circa 1810...... only one I've ever seen in a case..... was £ 160.... That was in 1992 at Bermondsy in London....

And lately a Japanese woodblock print of old Kyoto I saw last year in Yokohama...... it was not much... but it has etched a image in my mind and now that I'm on the other side of the planet I want it....... also the Antique Japanese lunch box it saw the first day of shopping on my first trip.... my friend said we would find better for less...... never seen anything half as good even at 5 times the price......

and Mic-addict...... bad thing to pass up J. R. B & S stuff for 12 bucks....
 
The closest I have is a B&S, 108 a little tool box rough and an almost identical C.P.Co in very good shape. Both are 2 5/8" long. Who is C.P.Co? Also have a B&S inside about 2 3/4" long.

Bill
 
Rivett608

Well, at least it wasn't the Studley Chest that you passed up!

If the title wasn't already taken we could write a book of tales of Flea Market woe and call it "Left Behind" ! :rolleyes:
 
I did have a chance to buy the Studley Chest....... would have been about 22K....... have all the letters about that in file cabinet... but I did get a chance to "Play" with it....


So that would have to be added to the list even though there was no way I had the cash at the time......

You know... that chest probably comes up in conversation every couple of weeks..... even after all this time that has to be the most famous American tool chest!
 
Rivett608 wrote:

"I did have a chance to buy the Studley Chest"

Oh, My God!!! Oh! That has got to be the nearest thing to a Holy Grail for tool collectors!!! Oh!!!

Says a lot about the "Art World". Objects that represent only a tiny fraction of the planning and skill of Mr. Studley go for millions of dollars. To think that it was for sale for only $22K !!! The thing's a national treasure.

Oh!!! I feel your pain!!! All I have are twinges of regret for not buying a mint Norris-style Plane by Footprint for $125 and the same day a complete boxed Stanley 55 for $125. Footprint ran off a few reproduction Norris planes circa 1980. This was one of those, not an original Norris but certainly a bargain at $125 none the less. I have no excuse: I had $600 of "spending money" in my pocket that day.

John Ruth
 
The whole story of the Studley Chest is pretty crazy..... the way this was handled it turned off every collector interested in it...... it was sort of like send money and then you can come see it..... later it sold to a friend of a friend of mine..... I have been told it could be arranged that I could come see again when I want too...... no one at that time had any idea how popular that thing would become.

and the things we have let go...... I once brokered a deal for a 100 Stanley planes and tools New in their boxes...... 55 included... I could have bought the deal out for about $ 2500-3000.... oops... but then again I have always said the "S" in Stanley means SELL IT.
 
Rivett608:

I don't mean to hijack this thread onto a discussion of The Studley Chest, but then again I seem to recall that there were calipers in it.


My opinion is that the two things that made the Studley Chest famous were its "loaner" display in the Smithsonian and, more importantly, the production of the beautiful color poster by Taunton Press. That started discussion on the OLDTOOLS mailing list and the rest is history.

How about "Things we let go because we did not realize what they were at the time?" Not long ago, I was looking a wrench on the $1 table at a local Flea. Didn't realize until the next day that it wasn't a wrench, it was a clever milling machine vise handle! And it would fit my vise! Of course it was gone when I went back the next Flea mkt meet.

Now, how can I return this thread back to mini-calipers?

John Ruth
 
Studley Chest, its well organized and neat, since the first time I saw it I decided I'm going to build myself a smaller version to carry basic machining tools one might need if he was to go from one shop to another to get some work done and didn't know what he'd need when he got there. But before I do that I'm probably gonna build a small wooden tool chest to put on my roll around for practice first.


At 22,000$ that was a steal just for the workmanship and the tooling in that, looking at the list of tooling that was in the fine woodworking magazine he had a fine taste in tooling! :D

Rivett, I bet you got smaller calipers with the reproduction minatures you make. Good work on thouse by the way! They are amazing. :eek:

Dimitri
 
Pictured Caliper 2 1/8 overall marked J. Stevens A&T Co. and the patent date of 11/20/1883 which would be 288961 O. Warfield and a Darling Brown & Sharpe, measures to 2"- 2 5/8 oal.DBS small.jpgStevens small calipers.jpgDSC00626.jpg
 
This little gem became very popular right after the STUDLEY Poster was published by Taunton.

I've owned it since before then, and have seen it in some original Hardware Catalog (that I have misplaced), that also gave no hint of any actual manufacturer.

It's been reproduced by at least two people, and neither is currently available (that I know of).


pSp42UM.jpg
 








 
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