On the First (or thereabouts) of Each Month, I am going to offer for sale a wonderful high-end instrument. I will list the Instrument of the Month on this page, along with the Instruments of the Month for the two preceding months (if unsold). If you are a collector of high-end instruments, or just want to see the Best of the Best, please bookmark this page and visit it at the beginning of each month.

The offering for April 2021:

FROM THE DALE BEEKS COLLECTION

This is a wonderful William Davenport four vane compass made between 1820 and 1829. The original owner's name, Samuel L Smedley, is engraved on the compass face.

I suspect Dale added this four vane compass to his personal collection of instruments because (1) complete four vane plain compasses are quite rare, (2) there aren't many William Davenport instruments known, (3) the original owner's name is engraved on the instrument, and (4) the box with all of its labels is in really nice shape. All of these things make for a highly desirable and valuable instrument. Definitely worthy of a very nice display.

William Davenport was a skilled instrument maker who lived and worked in Philadelphia. I have a fair amount of information listed about Davenport on my Davenport Maker Webpage. Please check out that webpage as I won't duplicate that information here.

William worked as an apprentice to the instrument maker William Dean from about 1802 to 1804, and then opened his own shop shortly thereafter. Based on the William Davenport label in the instrument box, Davenport made this Four Vane Compass sometime between 1820 and 1829. The box top actually includes 3 great labels - Davenport, Davenport's kids, and Helffricht - all at the same address!

The needle on the compass is 6 inches.

This is a wonderful four vane compass from Dale's personal collection, and would make for a very nice display.

360 Degree Spinner View

The original owner, Samuel L Smedley was gifted at mathematics, and was a teacher and a surveyor, among other things. Smedley resided in Middletown, and died quite young at the age of 36, unfortunately. Smedley's son was an engineer and surveyor who made an Atlas for the City of Philadelphia. I haven't found anything connecting the Davenport 4 vane compass to Smedley's son (who was only a couple of years old when his dad passed away). I found a wonderfully detailed genealogy of the Smedley family that discusses Samuel L Smedly at length at: Smedley Genealogy