Assay Balance
date: label: date made
content: early twentieth century
name: label: maker
content: William Ainsworth and Sons
notes: label: Description
content: Assay (or button) balance in a wooden frame with glass sides and two drawers in the base. The beam is aluminum, and 6 inches long. The inscription on the ivory scale reads “WM AINSWORTH & SONS DENVER COLO. U.S.A.”
label: Description
content: William Ainsworth (1850-1917) was born in England, came to the United States as a small child, and grew up in the Mid-West. He moved to Central City, Colorado, in the mid-1870s, and earned his living repairing watches and other small instruments. He made his first balance in 1879, and moved to Denver in 1880. The firm became William Ainsworth & Sons in 1899, and soon claimed to be “the largest manufacturers of fine balances in the world.” It later became Denver Instrument, and was acquired by Sartorius in 1999.
label: Description
content: Ref: Henry Heil, <i>Illustrated Catalogue and Price-List of Chemical Apparatus</i> (St. Louis, 1903), pp. 102-105.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Colorado, Territory of, Denver
topic: label: Subject
content: Weights & Measures
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Chemistry
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Colorado School of Mines Department of Metallurgical Engineering
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CH.328132
label: accession number
content: 270025
label: catalog number
content: 328132
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Assay Balance
label: Object Type
content: Balances
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: beam: 16 cm; 6 5/16 in
label: Measurements
content: case: 42 cm x 50.5 cm x 25.5 cm; 16 9/16 in x 19 7/8 in x 10 1/16 in
label: Measurements
content: each dish: 2 cm; x 13/16 in