On the level

[Branson]

Yesterday the dump provide several useful items, but the big catch, I think, is this level.  Tarnished brass, a couple of small dings in the mahogany, but otherwise completely sound and nearly unused.

[Dakota Woodworker]

Wow!  That baby is still in great shape.  It's amazing what one can find at the dump. 

[Branson]

I haven't found a lot of information about it yet.  There are a couple of 2 foot Goodell-Prat levels on eBay, but without the brass edge binding.  And there's a 1 footer, with the edge binding that is mint in the original box (It was bid up to $900 yesterday).  I've picked up some good tools at the dump at next to nothing prices the past few years, but nothing as pretty as this.

[Branson]

I found it in the 1926 Goodell-Pratt catalog (No. 16).  It's a #1524 narrow level.  Price in '26 was $4.40.

[rusty]

> Price in '26 was $4.40.

Don't you wish you had bought 10 or 12 of them back then? LOL

That design must be close to perfection, because all these years later, that style is still made almost identical.....

Very nice, gawd only knows why someone threw it away...
(I suppose they weren't very level headed....*ducking*)

[scottg]

To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump (sung to the Lone Ranger theme song)
   
Nearly everything ever made by the hand of man, ends up in the dump one day.
Its unbelievable but its true.
 I used to live next door to Walt Johnson, am amiable old guy, who manned the Happy Camp dump for 2 decades. In his yard was a D-8 Cat, a midsize loader, a logging yarder, a crane, 2 backhoes and 2 flatbed trucks over 2ton.  These were just the near mint, running, pieces of equipment he kept. Many more went away.

  The level score is dynamite! I love it!
 Its also a Stratton Bros level, best level makers in America, no doubt about it.
  The little beaded brass wire on the plumb marker gives it away. The coolest way to mark a vial, and one nobody else copied as far as I know.
   
  Anyone know the GP-Stratton connection? Anybody know?  These has to be one.
Or else maybe G-P copied after Stratton went out of business and their patents expired?
  yours Scott

[rusty]

>Anyone know the GP-Stratton connection?

GP bought Stratton lock stock and barrel, sometime before 1925...
GP's early growth was primarily via aquisition and merger ;P

[Branson]

>To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump (sung to the Lone Ranger theme song)

Yup, that's my theme song!

>The little beaded brass wire on the plumb marker gives it away. The coolest way to mark a vial, and one nobody else copied as far as I know.

One of the first things I noticed...  That and the condition.  There is no shrinkage of the wood.  When G-P advertised "cured mahogany" they weren't kidding.  You can run a fingernail over the joint between the brass and the wood without finding the joint.  And it is still plumb, too.

>Nearly everything ever made by the hand of man, ends up in the dump one day.

Very true, and always has been.  You'll see many of the best artifacts dug by archaeologists from "middens" and middens are the village dumps of prehistoric peoples.