Assay Balance
Assay Balance
Usage conditions apply
- Description
- Assay (or button) balance in a wooden frame with glass sides and two drawers in the base. The beam is aluminum, and 6 inches long. The inscription on the ivory scale reads “WM AINSWORTH & SONS DENVER COLO. U.S.A.”
- William Ainsworth (1850-1917) was born in England, came to the United States as a small child, and grew up in the Mid-West. He moved to Central City, Colorado, in the mid-1870s, and earned his living repairing watches and other small instruments. He made his first balance in 1879, and moved to Denver in 1880. The firm became William Ainsworth & Sons in 1899, and soon claimed to be “the largest manufacturers of fine balances in the world.” It later became Denver Instrument, and was acquired by Sartorius in 1999.
- Ref: Henry Heil, Illustrated Catalogue and Price-List of Chemical Apparatus (St. Louis, 1903), pp. 102-105.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- Assay Balance
- Object Type
- Balances
- date made
- early twentieth century
- maker
- William Ainsworth and Sons
- place made
- United States: Colorado, Territory of, Denver
- Measurements
- beam: 16 cm; 6 5/16 in
- case: 42 cm x 50.5 cm x 25.5 cm; 16 9/16 in x 19 7/8 in x 10 1/16 in
- each dish: 2 cm; x 13/16 in
- ID Number
- CH.328132
- accession number
- 270025
- catalog number
- 328132
- Credit Line
- Colorado School of Mines Department of Metallurgical Engineering
- subject
- Weights & Measures
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Chemistry
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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