I have a 1889 clinometer, also known
as an inclinometer, declinometer, pitch and roll
indicator, or tilt meter.
And various other terms.
- Or a level. - Or a level.
Yeah. You could say that.
[laughs]
I came to the pawn shop to sell my antique clinometer.
I got the clinometer at a flea market in Northern Illinois
and it's a very rare device.
I'm asking 3,500 for the clinometer,
but I will take 1,500.
If I get the $1,500, I'm going to go out and buy
some more really cool things.
It's an interesting carpenter's tool.
Instead of just being a level with a bubble in it,
you know, because your bubble basically tells you
whether you're flat or not, this will
tell you what your inclines are without the pen and paper
to do it.
And WLL was probably the carpenter that owned it.
Sure.
It was probably a tool used almost every damn day.
Yeah.
And this is your paper work with it?
Yeah, that's the original patent.
OK.
William B. Melick of St. Louis patented it in 1889.
This was a pretty amazing time.
You know, up until first 50 years of the Patent Office,
we did like 14,000 or 15,000 patents.
And then the second half of the 1800s, we did almost a million.
Yeah.
And this is one of those neat things where a guy was sitting
around saying, it'd be so much easier
if I could just put a level there
and it tells me the angle.
It's interesting.
What do you want for it?
I'm actually looking for $3,500.
And I'm basing that on I had an expert
tool person tell me about it.
OK.
And they said it was a very rare item, collectible.
He said it was worth that.
But he didn't offer to buy it though, did he?
No. He didn't offer to buy it.
- [laughs] - He said he'd never see one.
That sounds really astronomical for something
like this. - OK.
I've seen similar things before go
for like a couple hundred bucks.
And I'd give you, $150 for it.
Oh, I can't.
That'd be way too low.
I like it but we're worlds apart here, though.
OK.
Well, I appreciate you looking at it.
All right. No problem, man.
Yeah. All right.
Have a good one.
Thanks.
I'm passing on the offer of 150 because it's definitely
worth much more than that.
I'm going to keep the clinometer till I can find an offer
that's more on the right level.