Bud's Description:

"This is a fine example of this noted pioneer California maker. It has a 7" horizontal circle to 30 seconds, and a 5" full vertical circle to 1 minute, and a 4 3/4" compass needle. Pencil markings inside the wood case read "P J Fitzgerald, Junior Class 02 St Marys College, Oct 2 01. There are 2 Sala cards inside the case, and one from the Seattle Optical Co. The instrument is complete with tripod. The compass dial has fancy original swirl-pattern polishing."

Simply put, this is the surveyor's transit you want to own and display. Specialty transits, like solar and mining transits, are the top of the food chain when it comes to displaying transits. But this San Francisco made Roach transit is just one notch below them. It's the compass face. If you display a Chandlee compass next to a Thaxter compass, everybody is going to stare at the Chandlee because of the compass face. The same thing happens when you put this Roach next to a Gurley, Buff, K&E, etc. People are gonna stare at the Roach because of the compass face. The compass face on this Roach transit is just so much cooler than the face on just about every other surveyor transit. The fact that the transit was made in SF by a noted maker just adds to the story you can tell about this instrument while on display.

This transit also seems to be in nice working order, with good optics and crosshairs.

The box also checks all of the boxes - pull out display, multiple great labels, and nice condition. Again, very display-worthy.

Price: SOLD