The Compleat Surveyor
Picture on the Front Cover of Chaining the Land, by Bud Uzes (First Edition 1977)
The Compleat Surveyor (1995 thru 2006)
My dad, Bud Uzes, loved surveying history, instruments and books. He authored two editions of Chaining the Land (in 1977 and 2006) and the Illustrated Price Guide to Antique Surveying Instruments and Books (in 1980). In 1995 I created The Compleat Surveyor business to help him in his never-ending quest to find more old instruments and books. Together we found a lot of great instruments and books from 1995 to 2006, when Bud passed away unexpectedly. After selling his books and instruments afterwards, I decided to quit the collectible surveying business and stopped updating the original Compleat Surveyor website. The website quickly fell into disrepair - changes in technology left the website behind, with many links and graphics not working. I also moved the website to a different domain name (www.earlycorvettes.com) after hackers took over my original domain (www.uzes.net). After a few years, the Compleat Surveyor website barely registered a blip on the internet radar screen.
The Compleat Surveyor (2019 - )
After retiring in 2017, I recalled how much fun I had searching for old surveying instruments and books from 1995 to 2006. So I started hunting for instruments and books again, and started paying attention to the buying and selling activity on ebay. While the market has changed somewhat in the last 15 years, especially for more common instruments and books, the market for distinctive surveying instruments and rare books still seems vibrant.
After finding some cool stuff, including a Gurley Solar Compass with a known history, I decided to restart The Compleat Surveyor. I saved what I could of the old Compleat Surveyor website, and fixed the broken links to the extent feasible. For what its worth, the old website contains a wealth of information reflecting market prices and trends from the 1999 to 2005 time period. The old website cannot realistically be updated unfortunately - web authoring software has changed dramatically since 1999. So I archived the old website and am creating a new website that reflects my new efforts.
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