This is a really nice Gurley Railroad compass, complete with a very nice box and all of its tools. I date the compass to about 1900 or shortly thereafter. I based the dating on the lack of a serial number, so it was made before 1908 (when Gurley first added serial numbers to their instruments). Additionally, Gurley started using the business card like label inside the box lid around 1900 and continued to use that label until after 1908.

Everything works on this Railroad compass. I don't think it was used very much. The sight vanes don't show a ton of use, and the box, labels and tools also look pretty fresh.

No 120 year old instrument is perfect however - so please note that the compass face has a bit of spotting on it, and a very small point of corrosion at the NW point.

Here are the specs:

Can measure angles independently of the needle

15.5 Inch Mainplate

8.5 Inch Needle

Verniers Measure to 1 Minute

In the pics below I included two pics from Gurley Catalogues. One pic shows the prices of the Gurley Railroad compass in the 1890s. Note that the compass shown in the pic was a slightly different version than the compass offered here. Gurley didn't update their catalogues until much later to show the revised Railroad Compass. The second colorized pic is from Gurley's 1914 Catalogue - showing the revised model that is offered here.

Railroad Compasses sell for about 2x the price of a nice Gurley plain or vernier compass. The reason - they are great instruments and Gurley did not sell all that many of them. Based on some partial Gurley production figured that survived, for the period 1870 thru 1885 Gurley sold 90% plain or vernier versus 10% Railroad. See my Gurley Makers Webpage for more info.