Lovibond Tintometer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1914
name: label: maker
content: Tintometer, Ltd.
notes: label: Description
content: Joseph W. Lovibond, a brewer in Salisbury, England, sought a way to control beer quality by matching each batch to a color standard. In 1886, after some 20 years of experimentation, he obtained a British patent on a device that compared the color of a beer sample with the color made by a combination of two or three glass filters of various intensities of magenta, yellow, or cyan.
label: Description
content: Lovibond introduced his Tintometer to the market in 1887, describing it as a “new instrument for the analysis, synthesis, matching, and measurement of colour.” It soon found uses in numerous industries. Eimer & Amend in New York claimed in 1895 that it was “Invaluable to Chemists, Dyers, Brewers, Sugar Refineries and Flouring Mills.” Moreover, its “method of expressing the composition of any given color with mathematical precision” gave a “new power” to colorimetric investigation. Tintometer, Ltd., was established by Lovibond in 1896 and is still in business today.
label: Description
content: The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute bought this example in 1914 for the use of William Pitt Mason, a chemistry professor and pioneer in the field of water and waste chemistry. It came to the Smithsonian in 1981. An inscription reads “J. W. LOVIBOND PATENT TINTOMETER THE TINTOMETER LTD. SALISBURY No. 1913.”
label: Description
content: Ref: The Tintometer Ltd.,< i>Colour Measurement</i> (Salisbury, 1931).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, New Sarum
topic: label: Subject
content: Chemistry
label: Subject
content: Color
label: Subject
content: Optics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Chemistry
label: See more items in
content: Saccharimeters
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Department of Chemistry
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1981.0496.01
label: catalog number
content: 1981.0496.01
label: accession number
content: 1981.0496
label: serial number
content: 1913
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Tintometer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: mahogany (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: base holder: 170 mm x 73 mm x 16 mm; 6 11/16 in x 2 7/8 in x 5/8 in
label: Measurements
content: folded: 85 mm; 3 3/8 in
label: Measurements
content: reflector frame: 180 mm x 207 mm x 127 mm; 7 1/16 in x 8 1/8 in x 5 in
label: Measurements
content: meter: 299 mm x 63 mm x 40 mm; 11 3/4 in x 2 1/2 in x 1 9/16 in
label: Measurements
content: base pesestal: 123 mm x 307 mm x 12.6 mm; 4 13/16 in x 12 1/16 in x 1/2 in
label: Measurements
content: base arm: 178 mm x 27 mm; 7 in x 1 1/16 in