I got a chance to see and touch a piece of history today, one of the original 13 sets of gage blocks made by CE Johansson! I went to the online local paper to check yard sales and see if there was any I ought to go look at. On the front page, just before clickiing the Classifieds link, I saw a headline "Yardsale Eureka". Checked out the link to find a local woman had purchased the set years ago for $20, and would have them on display at the local Ford dealer today. I took my copy of Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy and let her copy the section on Johansson, and took a couple pictures of the set. She has documentation certifying it as Johansson's personal set, and she's going to get me a copy of that. Here's the link to the article in today's local paper:
If I'd seen these at a museum, they'd have been behind glass. It was neat to be able to actually touch them. No, didn't handle the blocks themselves and I made sure to tell her not to handle them.
Sure wish this had been my yard sale score...
Jon