Nice Example - Probably Not An Original Solar Transit However

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This Buff & Buff Solar Transit (s/n 13574) is a nice example of a solar transit that was the General Land Office's workhorse transit starting in 1914 or so. The prior owner believes that #13574 was not originally a solar transit, so it is being sold with that disclaimer, with a significant price reduction. This example comes with a gradienter, which is always a very nice addition to a display worthy transit.

Gurley owned the solar transit market starting in 1870 or so, until other approaches (Saegmuller solar attachments, Smith solar attachments, etc) to making solar observations were developed by other makers. (See a 1901 History of Solar Instruments here). Gurley still dominated the market for solar transits even after competitive approaches hit the market - Gurley's head start in making solar transits proved insurmountable although competitors like Young & Sons and Buff and Buff chipped away at Gurley's huge marketshare year after year. Gurley's domination of the solar transit market came to an end in 1910 or so, when the GLO terminated hiring surveyors on a contract basis and hired them instead as employees. Starting around 1910, the GLO started buying solar instruments to outfit all of its newly hired surveyors from Young & Sons, and a few years later from Buff & Buff. I've seen internal GLO correspondence circa 1914 stating that the GLO thought the Buff solar transit was superior to all other solar transits.

As you can see from the pics below, this is a very small solar transit, and would look very nice next to some full sized solar instruments.

There is no box for this instrument - just the solar transit.

NOTE - In a pic below one of the plastic sun screens over a vernier is cracked/broken. I unfortunately misplaced the cracked pieces (see bottom pic). I dropped the price by $100 to reflect the damage. The other sunscreen is made out of plastic, so I suspect you could have a sunscreen reproduced. Other than the sunscreen the transit appears as is shown on my webpage.

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