What is the difference between a stick and a banjo barometer?

A stick is an upright mercury barometer, the tube hidden behind a narrow case with the register plate at the top. A banjo carries a circular dial in a round head above a tapering waist. Banjo and wheel describe the same dial instrument, one from the case shape and one from the mechanism. Between them they account for a little over a quarter of the mahogany barometers listed on Sellingantiques.

How old are mahogany barometers usually?

The dealer-entered dates run from 1750 to 1930. Georgian dating dominates the upper part of the range, with Regency, Victorian and Edwardian behind it, and the two ends of the span are thinly populated. Roughly half the listings give a period word rather than a year. "19th Century" is the single largest bucket, followed by "Georgian", so both are best read as a bracket of decades.

Are barographs counted as barometers?

Yes. Dealers file them under the same heading, and they make up about one listing in nine. A barograph is a clockwork recording barometer in a glazed mahogany box, drawing a pressure trace on a paper chart. Titles cite five-glass cases, drum movements and chart drawers set into the plinth.

Which makers' names appear on these instruments?

Signed stick barometers commonly carry a maker's name and a town on the register plate, and titles follow suit. Only one name reaches three separate dealers on Sellingantiques, Negretti & Zambra. Everything else in the maker line is a single-dealer signature, so the names come through as individual instruments rather than as populations.

Why do so many listings say London?

London is the commonest place-name in the archive by a distance, and the great majority of these barometers are English. Provincial towns show up in ones and twos rather than in groups: Llandilo, Royston, King's Lynn, Weymouth and Ashford each appear once. Non-British cases are the scarcest thing of all, among them a French lyre-shaped case and a French wall-mounted barograph.

What does bow-fronted mean on a stick barometer?

It describes a case with a convex swelling to the front, rather than a flat board. Ten titles use the term. Every bow-fronted stick in the sample sits at the very top of the range.

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Antique Mahogany Barometers

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Wall-hung weather instruments in mahogany cases: upright mercury sticks, round-dialled wheel or banjo barometers, later aneroid dials, and clockwork barographs that inked the pressure onto a paper chart.