Rare German Compass and Floating Sundial in Turned Box by Ernst Christoph Stockert, c. 1790

A wood and paper compass card with brass gnomon, floating on a hidden pin. Beneath an original glass dome in a wooden turned box. The pink, green and yellow coloured paper has North, South, East West (in English) around the rim. For latitude 45 degrees plus or minus 5 degrees.

The sundial is marked ‘Stockert’. The Adler Planetarium in Chicago attributes an identical example to Ernst Christoph Stockert who was the first in a dynasty of well-known compass makers. Born in Sindolsheim, Bavaria in 1746, he worked in Fürth, dying of consumption in 1811. The firm Stockert & Sohn are still making compasses in Bavaria today.

The wooden case has a crack down one side and there is a small chip to one edge of the glass dome. Inside the dome the markings and floating sundial are in good condition for their age.