Nuttiest Collection Of The Month, And Winner Is:

The Dean

It wasn’t even a contest, and I mean that in two ways. I didn’t enter a collection in a contest, and this collection wins hands down. How does one start to accumulate such odd items as these meters and gauges? I know my first was a temperature gage with a snake like cable to a large industrial size head. It must have been used to read an area or place remotely. I was always going to mount it as an outdoor thermometer but the reader head was so bulky, it wound up sold at one of our yard sales. After that it was three electrical house meters, purchase as a lot and sold on Ebay for a good profit. They were very old and well marked and dated by the manufacturer.

So you see a name, or find an interesting shape and somehow they wind up as a collection, waiting to be displayed or sold. Let’s see if I can explain myself in terms of what the attraction was for each item.

The Paul J Grunau Co. of Milwaukee is imprinted on the dial face of this water pressure gauge made by Marsh Instruments of Chicago. Grunau being local, who could pass it up? It has a nice screw on brass bezel to boot.

A gas pressure meter labeled The Liquid Carbonic Co. was sitting in the back of a garage at an estate sale and the operator almost begged me to take it. (never pick up something you really don’t want.)

An elapsed time meter is attached to many motor driven industrial devices to ensure a rebuild or replacement before its normal life expires. Labeled JBI, Model 23EHXX, it has a double flange for panel mounting,

The fan shape of the Weston Electric Instrument Corp of Newark, New Jersey can be spotted two booths away, at a flea market and I had to have this beautiful Weston Ammeter Model 269.

One ammeter is never enough, this DC Ammeter model S48A was made by The Hickok Electrical Instrument Co. of Cleveland, Ohio.

The O-E Specialty Manufacturing Co. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. built this dual meter with Inches of Vacccum and Pounds of Pressure, so it swings both ways.

Lastly is the last one I bought. By now I have some inside knowledge this collection is really too far out there. But when one that must be rare (I Hope, I Hope) comes up for auction and the other bidder is weak in the arm, you wind up with “just one more.” Made by Chicago Cinema Equipment Co., with a chrome bezel for panel mounting and it is graduated in Feet P. Min and also, (and this is stunning) Min. P. 1000Ft. (wow.)

I’ve got to get serious and sell some of these before I’m found not to have normal behavior when judged by the collection police. I’ll bet my readers all have logical real honest collections and I think I heard snickering when some of you were reading this post.