February 24, 2004
#18 :: Calipers-style micrometer
Made an indeterminate number of years ago by the Reed Small Tool Works (!) of Worcester Mass., this exquisitely machined device measures the width or diameter of just about anything from 1/1000th of an inch to 1 inch. Its English-only scale speaks of the American industrial age, before the tyrannical sameness of the metric system and the pixelization of all design, when men would turn out solid, crisp machinery on lathes, presses and forge-fed steam-powered anvils. Goantiques.com says it's worth $37.50, which is the sort of nonsensical categorization today's information economy would impose on the forces of steam, steel, coal and sweat that built this country. And the sort of banker's trivia that said mammoth engine would crush beneath its wheels in the drive to the future.