I’ve previously noted that Brandis Catalogue No. 20, which is not dated, contains a testimonial letter from a customer dated December 12, 1914, and so we know the earliest that it could have been published was some time in 1915 [1]. Up until a couple of days ago my best guess for the latest date that it could have been published was sometime in 1917. That ‘no later than’ date was based on the presence of the ‘Brandis & Sons Mfg. Co’ firm name on the catalog’s front page. If the Brandis firm name was changed from ‘Brandis & Sons Mfg. Co’ to ‘Brandis & Sons, Inc.’ sometime in 1917 as I've previously suggested [1], then Brandis Catalogue No. 20 must have been published sometime between early 1915 and the end of 1917.
I can now shave about a year and a half from that ‘no later than’ date. A few days ago I came across volume 181 of the Journal of the Franklin Institute [2], which lists Brandis Catalogue Number 20 as a gift to the Franklin Institute’s library. Volume 181 covers the period from January to June of 1916, and so the date range for the publication of Brandis Catalogue No. 20 is narrowed down to sometime between early 1915 and June of 1916.
Although I can’t prove it, I suspect that Brandis Catalog No. 20 was published in the first half of 1916. I think that in early 1916 Brandis was giving away copies of its newly-published Catalogue No. 20 to technically-oriented institutions around the country, and the Franklin Institute was a recipient of one of these free catalogs. As support for this idea, I note that the John Crerar Library in Chicago, another technically-oriented institution, lists "Brandis & Sons Mfg. Co." as the donor of an unspecified ‘volume or pamphlet’ in its annual report for calendar year 1916 [3].
The date of publication of Brandis Catalog No. 20 is a fairly arcane matter, but I felt it was worth this brief note because this catalog tells us exactly what four types of Brandis sextant looked like at a particular period of time. Pinning down just when that particular period of time was as well as we possibly can doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
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are always welcome (no one will be banned, blocked, or castigated for offering differing opinions). Send to gardnersghost@gmail.com
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References/Footnotes
[1] See footnote 1 of ‘A Brandis Sextant Taxonomy, Part Five - Five Inch Radius Sextants’.
[2] Journal of the Franklin Institute, Volume 181, No. 6, June 1916. page 864. This can be downloaded at Google Books.
[3] The John Crerar Library Twenty Second Annual Report for the Year 1916, page 34. This can be downloaded at Google Books.
