Description

This is a fascinating compass. The compass is an odd blend or primitive craftsmanship with some sophisticated design details. On the primitive side, there is very little engraving and the numbers appear to be punched rather than engraved. Additionally, there is no needle lifter, and the sight vanes appear misaligned slightly to my eye. Hard to tell though.  

The sophisticated design features include cool dovetail sight vane holders, with a hefty screw holding each vane in place. This solved the somewhat common problem of sight vanes falling off of the dovetail holders over time. And the glass cover has a very nice lock down system – similar to that found on the Storrs compass I have for sale. Note that the lockdown system is somewhat misaligned as well however. Finally, the screws are individually marked for each location – see the pic below showing the screws and the associated marks.

And then there is the compass face made out of copper. This is the only copper compass face that I have seen, and some other long-term collectors haven’t seen anything like this compass either.

Why use copper?? Cheaper than brass?? Or was the maker testing a non-reflective surface to avoid the sun’s glare that plagued silver face compasses? Recall that William J Young patented an approach where he made brown-faced compasses specifically to overcome the glare problem.

The compass is 12 inches long with a 4 5/8 inch needle.

All things considered, this is a fascinating early compass.

360 Degree Spinner View – with Zoom Option

(Zoom with your mouse scroll wheel or with the magnifying glass in the spinner menu bar. Unzoom to regain control of the 360 degree spinner).

If you would enjoy learning more about early American Compasses, please see my webpages relating to Collecting Colonial and Early American Compasses.