12-01-201212-01-2012
Skinner Auctions
Skinner AuctionsMarlborough MA
December 1, 2012 10:00 AMCalender
232

Holtzapffel & Company Rose Engine Lathe No. 1636 and Cabinet of Accessories

Sell one like this
$228,000$190,000
Auction: Clocks, Watches & Scientific Instruments - 2623MLocation: MarlboroughDate / Time: December 01, 2012 10:00AM

Description:

Holtzapffel & Company Rose Engine Lathe No. 1636 and Cabinet of Accessories, London, 1838, the mahogany bench with six inch center lathe, two-part traversing mandrel fitted with eighteen rosettes and index ring, brass drive pulley and side-mounted cast iron drive wheel, wooden treadle and overhead "Evans type" motion, 45-in. steel bed stamped 1636, headstock Holtzapffel & Co./ London and compound slide engraved in script Holtzapffel & Co./London, lower mounted cabinet with one double and seven single fitted drawers containing numbered split rosettes, steel and ivory rubbers, tool rests, brass chucks, hand tools and two additional bench-top dovetailed mahogany boxes containing twenty-four sets of brass split rosettes, ht. 86, wd. 52 1/2, dp. 35 in.; the two part mahogany cabinet of accessories with glazed upper section and mirrored back, fitted shelves holding multiple components including eccentric, double eccentric, spherical and universal chucks and another marked Ibbetson's Geometric Chuck (First Part) Made by Holtzapffel & Co. London1636, and other components, ht. 76, wd. 37 1/2, dp. 18 1/2 in.

Note: Two years in the making, this lathe was first sold for a price reportedly in excess of 1500 pounds sterling, December 20, 1838, to London civil engineer and elected Fellow of the Royal Society, John Taylor Esquire (1779-1863). Warren Greene Ogden Jr. traces the history of the rose engine through six owners to his personal custody in 1954, then to Richard I. Miller, Tucson, Arizona, in 1985. A complete provenance is presented in Ogden, The Pedigree of Holtzapffel Lathes, pp. 202-207 which accompanies the lot.

A copy of the inventory of Rose Engine Lathe No. 1636 conducted by Holtzapffel & Co. in 1882 is available on request.

John Jacob Holtzapffel II wrote to owner W.J.E. Rooke on October 21, 1886 that Holtzapffel Rose Engine Lathe No. 1636 is "one of three, the last and best we have made."
Estimate $70,000-90,000

The esteemed Holtzapffel scholar and former owner of Rose Engine Lathe No. 1636 and Accessories, Warren Ogden, wrote that this machine "had always been in the hands of exceptionally careful possessors who used the lathe very little...and is virtually as good as when it first left the Holtzapffel shop in 1838". (Ogden, The Pedigree of Holtzapffel Lathes, p. 207.)

Keywords

Holtzapffel & Company, London, John Jacob Holtzapffel II, Cabinet of Accessories, Warren Greene Ogden Jr., steel bed, hand tools, John, civil engineer, John Taylor Esquire, Royal Society, Richard I. Miller, Tucson, W.J.E. Rooke, Warren Ogden