Small Micrometer

[jaCK HobsonParticipant @jackhobson50760]

A 0-10mm keychain mic. A nice find in amongst a bag of rubbish tools I got in an auction. I think it is too old to be one of the chinese types. The lock works so an extra feature over the similar example currently on ebay for over £400. I’d take offers over £300!

I can’t read the engraving. Something like C. Priber?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Great find, Jack

… and just for fun, I offer this ‘perspectivised’ detail

MichaelG.

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[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Just a guess, the micrometer being metric makes it more likely to be continental than British, most probably German, pre- or post-WW2.  After WW2 made in either East or West Germany, the type disappearing when Japan started making affordable precision micrometers in the late 1950s.

Jack’s example is basic – coarse thread, and no vernier – so inexpensively made for a metalworking trade requiring only moderate accuracy and precision.   Perhaps jewellery.

Another guess, a current German metrology firm trades under the name ‘Helios-Preisser’.  Helios are famous for slide-rules and I find Preisser were a well-known micrometer maker.   Could Jack’s example be marked ‘Preißer’, where ß is a German only letter roughly equivalent to ‘ss’?

This guess is supported by these words from Helios-Preisser’s German Catalogue:

Preisser – seit 70 Jahren in der Messtechnik zuhause
Preisser wird vor über 70 Jahren, im Jahre 1939 als ein Handwerksbetrieb von den beiden Werkzeugmachern Albert Barth und Erich Preisser gegründet.

which Mr Google translates as:  Preisser – at home in measurement technology for 70 years Preisser was founded more than 70 years ago, in 1939, as a craft business by the two toolmakers Albert Barth and Erich Preisser.

In older German script, E looks rather like a C, 𝕰, so Jack’s micrometer might marked “E Preißer”.   Don’t bet the farm on it!

Could Jack be persuaded to try for a better photo:  item on a solid table, with black background, with light at a different angles in hope of bringing out the name?

Any Germans on the forum?

Dave

[peak4Participant @peak4]

The basic design seems quite common; this is my 15mm version, with vernier, and a friction thimble.
3″ Chesterman caliper for scale; no prizes for spotting the oddity of the latter; also marked POLDI.(Presumably made for Poldi in The old Czechoslovakia, and a variation of item 1404 in their catalogue)
The micrometer has the remains of some slightly metallic/hammered blue paint on the end, which I suspect may be original; other than the numbers, no markings on it anywhere.
I suspect the peeling coating is something like nickel plating
Yes I know they need a clean, but not sure how to remove the staining on the caliper without affecting the numbering, and I don’t want to damage what remains of the plating on the mic.

Bill

 

[jaCK HobsonParticipant @jackhobson50760]

Seller will take just £400 for this MICROMETER UNUSUAL METRIC EARLY USA VINTAGE RARE EARLY MACHINIST TOOL VICTORIAN | eBay

Seems mine has a scale to 20MM but the gap is 18mm. So slightly more useful than I thought. Gets my .05 feeler gauge spot on.

Im jealous of click and vernier!

More pics of signature

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

I have one of these,  I also have a symilar imperial one, I probably paid £1 for the pair

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