Patented
and
Distinctive Bit Braces, a Research Study by George Langford,
Sc.D. Updated February
5, 2006 return
to bit brace study
Note
1- William A. Ives, the manufacturer, New Haven, Connecticut, 1868-1917. Patentees
are listed here who are presumed to be connected to the Ives concern
through
a common attorney (John E. Earle) and a common witness (John H.
Shumway).
This is based on the assumption that the attorney would not have
undertaken
to prepare any patent for a competitor of Ives where a conflict of
interest
might arise.
I am
indebted
to Ron Pearson for his book, The American Patented Brace, 1829-1924,
and its images of patent drawings wherein I found the attorney and
witness
signatures that made this correlation possible. The comments in the
right
hand column refer to Pearson's rating system, where NS means not seen
(by
Pearson or anyone on whom Pearson relied), A means rarest, and B means
less rare but certainly not common. With the advent of the Internet and
in particular eBay, these ratings are relatively about the same, except
that some patent examples of which Pearson was unaware have now
surfaced.
I have put Pearson's NS rating into italics where I know that examples
do exist. For the
present,
patentee's names are linked to known examples in my collection and/or
in
the collection of Sandy Moss, magnificently presented on his website.
Use your browser's BACK button to get
back
to this page. I have linked the patent numbers to the excellent
website of the US
Patent and Trademark Office where you can look up the patent images
yourself.