Benjamin Pike Jr. was a famous retailer and maker of all sorts of scientific instruments, and he was likely the first person to market instruments on a nationwide basis. he came from the well-known Pike Family of instrument makers, and competed against his dad and brothers for business.

The circa 1860 transit offered here is fascinating, and is the only Benjamin Pike Jr transit that I have been able to find online and in all my reference materials. The transit has a 3.25inch needle and a 9 inch telescope, so it has a somewhat small footprint. But it weighs 15.5 lbs, so it has all of the heft of a larger instrument.

The transit has a spring opposed vertical motion tangent screw. Spring loaded tangent screws are generally thought to have come into play in the 1880s, so I suspect that this is a retrofit. It sure blends in well though, and the chamber containing the spring mechanism is slim and nicely designed - it doesn't look like the bulkier containers that appears in the 1880s. The 1856 Pike Catalogue contains an illustration of a transit that looks pretty much like this one, but it has normal tangent screws.

This transit also had a tapered sunshade. I'm not sure what that accomplishes. Maybe its a replacement that was a bit too small and was forced to fit onto the telescope.

The optics on the scope work although a bit cloudy. I didn't clean the glass so that might help a bit. The crosshairs are there but are fairly faint.

FYI - The transit had one small broken part - the horizontal tangent screw. The unit still works somewhat, but a pin that held a brace sheered off, so the brace isn’t attached. See the pics below showing the tangent screw area and the unattached brace.

Please see my Benjamin Pike Jr Maker Webpage for more information about Benjamin Pike Jr Instruments.

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