Aneroid, Barographs, Barometers, Conservation, Featured, History of Aneroid Barometers, Restoration, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments, Weather | March 2, 2025
Significant Shipwrecked Mariners Society Award – Updated March 2025
Generally when these instruments are given as presentations it’s to a retired partner from a law firm or the winner of some golfing extravaganza - these additions add nothing to the value or interest in the piece, indeed in most instances the plates are removed, the holes filled and a part of ignominious history gently forgotten. The Shipwrecked Fishermen and...
Aneroid, Barometers, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments | November 17, 2024
Extraordinary Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society Marine Barometer
An update to our recent blog about the unusual cases in which marine barometers from The Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society, better known as the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, are found. As previously posted, The Shipwrecked Fishermen & Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society gave many awards and prizes for heroic endeavours over the years, generally as medals but also in...
Aneroid, Barometers, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments | September 26, 2024
Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society Marine Barometers in Unusual Cases
The Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society, better known as the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, was established by John Rye in February 1839 as a result of the tragic loss of a fleet of fishing boats on the north Devon coast in October 1838. The Society’s objectives were to give “relief and assistance to the widows and orphans of fishermen;...
Aneroid, Barometers, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments | August 8, 2024
On This Day – 8th August 1908 – Wilbur Wright
On this day in 1908, Wilbur Wright publicly demonstrated a Wright aircraft for the first time in Europe at the Hunaudières racecourse at Le Mans, southwest of Paris. The airplane was an improved version of the brothers’ experimental designs flown in 1903-1905. Wilbur’s flights at Le Mans confirmed without doubt the Wrights’ claims to have developed a successful airplane and...
Aneroid, Barometers, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments | May 29, 2024
Very Unusual French Hybrid Aneroid Barometer c1858
An unusual French hybrid brass open dial aneroid barometer no. 2, maker unknown c1858. Early aneroid barometer having 4¾” zinc backed printed open centre card dial with weather prognostications to outer part, the barometric scale calibrated in cms Hg, marked “Baromètre” at 6 o’clock. The open centre with a hair spring tensioned rack and pinion drive assembled onto a lacquered brass...
Aneroid, Barometers, Barometers in Action, History of Aneroid Barometers, Marine, Weather | March 4, 2024
The RNLI at 200
A national lifeboat service was the vision of Sir William Hillary, a resident of the Isle of Man, who wanted to the reduce the death toll from the 1,800 shipwrecks annually around the British Isles at the time. He convinced a group of influential people in the City of London to take notice and the Royal National Institution for the...
Aneroid, Aviation, Barographs, Barometers, Barometers in Action, Conservation, Featured, History of Aneroid Barometers, Interior, Media Mentions, Pressure, Restoration, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments, Weather | September 28, 2023
Mark and Vavasseur Antiques Featured in Country Life!
Credit: Country Life, 27 September 2023 Issue www.countrylife.co.uk
Aneroid, Barometers, Barometers in Action, History of Aneroid Barometers, How do I repair an aneroid barometer, Is my barometer working, Pressure, Surveying, Technology, Testing Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments, Weather | August 28, 2023
Hysteresis and the Watkin Hicks Mountain Barometer
This scarce development of the aneroid barometer or altimeter, patented by Colonel H.S.S. Watkin in 1898, was born of poorly performing pressure sensing capsules. It had been known for some time that a first reading before an ascent of some high place would not agree once the observer returned to the same elevation even if the barometric pressure had not...
Aneroid, Barographs, Barometers, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, How do I repair an aneroid barometer, Pressure, Restoration, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments, Weather | August 8, 2023
August Work in Progress
Another fine instrument of particular interest, this large barograph is something quite special, and although unsigned, is undoubtedly the work of Negretti & Zambra. Let’s examine the evidence for this. First, the instrument is listed in the Negretti & Zambra catalogue of 1910 in the section Self-Recording Aneroid Barometers: item 82, a “Self-Recording Barometer, with a tall cylinder taking a...
Aneroid, Barometers, Barometers in Action, History of Aneroid Barometers, Pressure, Restoration, Testing Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments | August 6, 2023
The Quest for Greater Resolution in Aneroid Barometers II
As a follow up to Patent No. 2457 lodged by Daniels, this piece is certainly of significance. The Daniels instruments sought to display greater resolution with the introduction of a geared sub-assembly greatly magnifying the small rotational movement of the primary arbor, that connected by a fine chain to the secondary lever - the result being that the main dial...
Aneroid, Aviation, Barometers in Action, Conservation, Featured, History of Aneroid Barometers, Pressure, Restoration, Technology | July 24, 2023
Two Extraordinary Altimeters, and the Trail to the British Nuclear Bomb
Sometimes the most obscure and almost unrecognisable objects appear, and with all the interest in Christopher Nolan’s epic docu-thriller Oppenheimer, I decided to put pen to paper. Some years ago I was perusing an online auction and came across an instrument I recognised as a barometer or altimeter made by Negretti & Zambra. Puzzling, though, was the scale, calibrated in...
Aneroid, Barometers, Barometers in Action, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, Pressure, Restoration, Surveying, Technology, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments | May 11, 2023
The Quest for Greater Resolution in Aneroid Barometers I
As marvellous an invention as the aneroid barometer was, it had many shortcomings, most of which were approached by various instrument makers over the 100 years or so of production. Resolution, perhaps expressed as the reading to the highest number of decimal places, was an illusive goal. The problem relates to the expansion and contraction of the cell over a...
Aneroid, Barometers, Barometers in Action, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, How do I repair an aneroid barometer, Is my barometer working, Pressure, Restoration, Testing Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments, Weather | April 22, 2023
Antique Pocket Hypsometers II – Hicks Hypsometer
A very rare leather cased, lacquered and oxidised brass hypsometer No 590 by J. Hicks, London, c1900 Comprising four draw telescopic top section, the third draw marked "J. Hicks, Maker, 8, 9, & 10 Hatton Garden, London, No 590," first draw with heat shroud. Spirit burner with integral pushfit end cap, threaded wick cover, wind and flame shroud with lower...
Aneroid, Barographs, Barometers, Bourdon, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, Pressure, Restoration, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments, Weather | March 31, 2023
March Work in Progress
Another fascinating instrument from the storeroom, and at last I can give it the attention it needs. This Negretti & Zambra barothermograph was absolutely filthy, caked in dust and grime, and working to a point but not much more. Nonetheless, I could see that this would come good with careful conservation techniques. I always start a project like this by...
Aneroid, Barographs, Barometers, Barometers in Action, Compasses, Conservation, History of Aneroid Barometers, How do I repair an aneroid barometer, Is my barometer working, Pressure, Restoration, Testing Barometers, Vavasseur Antiques - Antique & Vintage Aneroid Barometers, Barographs & Other Scientific Instruments, Weather | February 16, 2023
February Work in Progress
Many might wonder what might be next on Vavasseur Antiques. “Work in progress” is a constant state, since almost all the items we offer are comprehensively re-built, serviced, and/or benefit from conservation. Consequently through-put is sometimes slow. This does mean though that the things we offer are ‘proper,’ as described, and as original as possible, not the product of the...
Barometers in Action, History of Aneroid Barometers, Technology | October 3, 2019
20th Century Technology – An Archive
We often talk and think about the Victorian era, and for many it stands alone as a brief period in world history when so much of what we know, use and take for granted in the 21st Century was invented or was the seed from which a much bigger idea blossomed in later years. Much of the inventiveness of the…
History of Aneroid Barometers | October 29, 2017
Recent Comments