Surveying Instruments Owned by John Lukens' (Surveyor General of PA) Estate in 1790

Most American collectors focus their collections on Compasses and Transits made by U.S. Makers. As the Lukens estate sale listing shows, however, there were a good number of surveying instruments imported into early America (mostly theodolites). And there were some unsigned instruments made in America but based on a Euro-design (Semicircles) that have largely remained off collectors' bucket lists. I believe that picking up one or two of these instruments would add a good deal of flavor to any well-developed American surveying instrument collection.

These instruments had one HUGE advantage over surveyor compasses - these instruments could measure angles independently of the needle. The surveyor compass was good enough for surveying much of the vast amount of cheap land America offered to early Americans, but sometimes a surveyor needed a more accurate instrument - and these were the go to instruments of choice.