View Full Version : Looking for information on old adjustable metal bridge
Anyone know anything about this:
9972299723
It was clearly an after-market addition to the instrument I acquired it with, but I've not seen one quite like it before.
Ray(T)
Mar-17-2013, 9:14am
Didn't one, similar to this, crop up on the Cafe a couple of months ago?
Didn't one, similar to this, crop up on the Cafe a couple of months ago?
Well it tickles something in my brain cells as well, but the usual searches didn't turn anything up. For the benefit of future searches, the text reads:
"Patent No 5151"
ProfChris
Mar-17-2013, 1:26pm
That patent is dated June 12 1847.
You might be able to see an image of it from the US Patent & Trade Mark Office database:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=0005151.PN.&OS=PN/0005151&RS=PN/0005151
Viewing requires Quicktime, which is rebelling for me at the moment!
Jim Garber
Mar-17-2013, 10:45pm
There is one that resembles this on this German mandolin (http://www.ebay.com/itm/200874094720) -- obviously aftermarket.
Bill Snyder
Mar-17-2013, 11:26pm
Do we know whether it is a US patent or one from an European country? After all Tavy is in England.
That patent is dated June 12 1847.
You might be able to see an image of it from the US Patent & Trade Mark Office database:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=0005151.PN.&OS=PN/0005151&RS=PN/0005151
Viewing requires Quicktime, which is rebelling for me at the moment!
Me too - that page is broken somehow :(
However, google has it (http://www.google.com/patents?id=kIpDAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false): "IMPROVEMENT IN COMPOSITIONS FOR CURRYING LEATHER", so that's not it.
UK patent 5151, appears to relate to incandescent lamps (1910), so that's not it either.
So I guess a German patent would be the next best guess, but I can't seem to find those online...
ProfChris
Mar-18-2013, 1:56pm
Espacenet gives you worldwide patents - this is the search for 5151:
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/searchResults?page=2&compact=false&ST=singleline&query=5151&locale=en_EP&DB=worldwide.espacenet.com
But most of the pre-1920 patents aren't available. So far as I can see most of the 1910-19 bunch relate to gas burners.
I wonder if this never actually obtained a patent, but just had the legend engraved on it to put off imitators.
Of course, this might be the German Stielhalter ("steel holder") of 1892, which comes from a company that made enamel stoves. In which case it's not a bridge but a stove handle, re-purposed!
Graham McDonald
Mar-18-2013, 3:50pm
A very similar bridge was on the first mandolin I bought around 40 years ago. It was a Sicilian built 12 string flatback with a label from a music store in Port Said, Egypt but I have no idea if it was original. There have been a number of pictures posted with similar bridges over the years here, and patent is patent in German as well as English (according to Google translation). As I suspect there were rather more mandolins made in Germany than England, a German origin might be more likely.
cheers
Michael Lewis
Mar-19-2013, 12:46am
Maybe from the Swiss patent office where Albert Einstein worked about that time.