Bow Compass
Bow Compass
Usage conditions apply
- Description
- This steel-spring instrument has a metal and ivory handle, with a ridged ring around the bottom and the top shaped like a pawn chess piece. A holder with a metal adjusting screw on one leg is missing its needle point. This leg is marked with the number 8 inside a circle and an arrow pointing left (toward the 8). The holder on the other leg has a pencil lead and is adjusted with a brass screw. The distance between the legs is adjusted with a metal screw and brass nut. This object does not resemble the ivory-handled bow-pencils sold around the turn of the 20th century by Keuffel & Esser, Dietzgen, Gurley, Kern, or Schoenner.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- bow pencil
- compass, drawing
- date made
- ca 1900
- Physical Description
- steel (overall material)
- ivory (overall material)
- brass (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 9.2 cm x 2.5 cm x 1.8 cm; 3 5/8 in x 31/32 in x 23/32 in
- ID Number
- MA.335342
- accession number
- 305958
- catalog number
- 335342
- Credit Line
- Gift of Eunice L. Hoffman
- subject
- Mathematics
- Drawing Instruments
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Science & Mathematics
- Dividers and Compasses
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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