Toledo Public Health Scale
date: label: Date made
content: after 1932
label: patent publication date
content: 1932-08-02
name: label: maker
content: Toledo Scale Company
notes: label: Description
content: The Toledo Scale and Cash Register Co. was established in Toledo, Ohio, in 1901. Its first product was a pendulum-type scale based on a patent issued to Allen de Vilbiss, Jr. To differentiate this new design from the common spring scale, Henry Theobald, the president of the firm and a pioneer of modern advertising, coined the term “No Springs Honest Weight.”
label: Description
content: After acquiring the Toledo Scale Co. in 1926, Hubert Bennett sought help from Norman Bel Geddes and other industrial designers. The Public Health Scale that the firm introduced in 1932, was a major success, earning the designers, Harold Van Doren and J. Gordon Rideout, a first award at the 1932 Art in Industry Exhibition. It had “dignified and attractive” proportions, and the indicator was so located that it could “be read with the greatest of ease” by the person on the scale, but not by passers-by.
label: Description
content: The case of this example is made of Plaskon, a plastic material that the Toledo Scale Company introduced in 1931. The inscriptions read: “TOLEDO / PUBLIC HEALTH / SCALE / NO SPRINGS HONEST WEIGHT / TRADE MARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF.” and “TOLEDO SCALE COMPANY / TOLEDO, OHIO U.S.A. / STYLE 8405A NO. 604559 / THIS DEVICE IS MANUFACTURED UNDER ONE / OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING UNITED / STATES PATENTS: 1,280,720 1,285,141 / 1,367,220 1,470,665 1,543,768 1,577,009 / 1,663,986 1,837,601 1,864,787 1,869,438 / PATENTS PENDING / 300 LBS. / 21895” and / “YOUR WEIGHT FREE.”
label: Description
content: Ref: Jeffrey L. Meikle, “Weighing the Difference. Industrial Design at the Toledo Scale Company, 1925-50,” in Dennis P. Doordan, ed., <i>The Alliance of Art and Industry: Toledo Designs for a Modern America</i> (Toledo Museum of Art, 2002), pp. 128-151.
label: Description
content: Timothy Messer-Kruse, “No Springs—Honest Weight. Toledo Scale Wins the Weight War,” <i>Timeline: A Publication of the Ohio Historical Society</i> 22 (2005): 2-17.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Ohio, Toledo
topic: label: Subject
content: Weights & Measures
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2005.0100.140
label: patent number
content: 1,864,438
label: serial number
content: 604559
label: accession number
content: 2005.0100
label: catalog number
content: 2005.0100.140
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Scale
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 42 1/2 in x 12 in x 22 3/4 in; 107.95 cm x 30.48 cm x 57.785 cm