.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This rare American boxed orrery and tellurian would have been for use in a didactic setting. The presence of Neptune on the orrery provides us with a construction date post-1846.
This tellurian is of the much rarer geared variety than the pulley mechanism tellurians occasionally seen. The only other boxed set we can find sold Skinner, 24 March 2007 lot 410, $44,063; that example had the less rare pulley tellurian, and only one Sun-ball, preventing joint use. (We can find no other example of the current geared tellurian, except in the contemporary trade literature.)
The accompanying book, illustrates the two instruments and provides an explanation of their use and a lesson; it also has 4 pages of advertisements at the rear showing the retail price in 1873 as $18.00 and $15.00 for the orrery and tellurian. Its praise for the tellurian or 'season machine' is great: 'In some of our Colleges ... it supplies an important place, furnishing illustration better and clearer than can be shown by any other instrument'.
This tellurian is of the much rarer geared variety than the pulley mechanism tellurians occasionally seen. The only other boxed set we can find sold Skinner, 24 March 2007 lot 410, $44,063; that example had the less rare pulley tellurian, and only one Sun-ball, preventing joint use. (We can find no other example of the current geared tellurian, except in the contemporary trade literature.)
The accompanying book, illustrates the two instruments and provides an explanation of their use and a lesson; it also has 4 pages of advertisements at the rear showing the retail price in 1873 as $18.00 and $15.00 for the orrery and tellurian. Its praise for the tellurian or 'season machine' is great: 'In some of our Colleges ... it supplies an important place, furnishing illustration better and clearer than can be shown by any other instrument'.