Used to Survey Main Street in Disneyland

360 Degree Spinner View

This is a wonderful 1860 Blunt Transit that checks all of the boxes. The Transit was made by E. & G. W. Blunt, which existed from about 1826 thru 1866 (when Edmund Blunt died). You can read here about the Blunt Family of Makers.

The transit is a highly precise instrument, especially given the the approximate date of manufacture. The verniers on this transit read to 20 seconds - which is AMAZING for 1860. Blunt finished making his second dividing engine sometime between 1855 and 1857, which explains how Blunt made a transit that could measure angles to 20 seconds. The dividing engine ultimately ended up years later in the hands of Koelsch. If you look at a Koelsch catalogue, you will see that Kolesch could indeed make a transit that measured angles to 20 seconds. The precision of this instrument also helps date the instrument - the instrument was made after Blunt finished making his dividing engine.

The other amazing thing about this instrument - it was used to survey Main Street in Disneyland, CA. This transit belonged to William Frost, who was the original surveyor of Disneyland.  If you google ""William Frost" surveyor Disneyland" the first few listing will provide you with information that ties Frost to the original survey of Disneyland.   William used the Blunt transit to survey Main Street, according to William's son. The Blunt transit is, after all, a high precision transit. The owner of Blunt Transit acquired a number of Mr. Frost's instruments from his son.

The transit has a gradienter (which can measure distances) and a spring loaded tangent system. I suspect these were later add-ons to keep the instrument functional and equal to more modern instruments.

This wonderful instrument comes with a tripod but lacks a box. The instrument still functions - the optics and crosshairs are ok, although a bit dusty. The image is inverted, so the image is bright but upside down. Everything else seems to work ok.

This is a real find for a surveying or Disney collector..

360 Degree Spinner View - With ZOOM