How is a stick barometer different from a wheel barometer?

A stick barometer reads the mercury directly against a graduated plate at the top of a long narrow case. A wheel barometer uses a round dial and a pointer. The stick form is the older arrangement and stayed in production into the 20th century, which is why the archive spans 1700 to 1930.

What woods do these cases come in?

Mahogany dominates, at about a quarter of all titles. Oak follows, then rosewood and walnut. Beyond those, listings throw up burr yew, burr maple, pollard oak, birds-eye maple, fruitwood, boxwood and ebonised work, along with parquetry and mother-of-pearl inlay on the more decorated Georgian cases.

Why do so many carry a town name?

The register plate was signed by the retailer or instrument maker who supplied it, and the town went on with the name. London accounts for a quarter of titles. The provincial signatures behind it are varied: Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Halifax, Norwich, Exeter, York, Hull, Preston, Derby, Whitehaven, Bath, Bristol, Taunton, Shrewsbury and Askrigg all appear.

What is an Admiral Fitzroy barometer?

A later pattern that carries printed weather notes on the plate, telling the reader what a rising or falling column meant. Carved oak cases are common on them. They turn up throughout the archive as a small but recurring group, alongside farmers', agricultural and long-range instruments.

Are marine stick barometers common?

Marine and sea-coast examples make up roughly one in ten listings, so they turn up regularly rather than occasionally. They were made for shipboard or coastal use and are frequently noted as gimballed, hung in a brass mount that keeps the tube upright. Ships' and Scottish ships' patterns both appear.

How often do these come up for sale?

About thirty-one are listed on Sellingantiques in a year, and fifty-one different dealers have handled one. That spread means the form sits across the trade generally rather than with a handful of specialists. Non-British pieces are the scarcest thing in the archive: a French barometer, an ebonised example from Milan and one signed in Dublin are effectively the whole of it.

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Antique Stick Barometers

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A stick barometer is a wall-hung mercury barometer, its long tube cased in a slim wooden trunk with a graduated register plate at the top, made to read the weather in a hall, a farmhouse or a ship's cabin.