I was visiting a friend and came home with this beautiful Christian Becker balance. I have a couple of (more) modern ones I don’t much use, so really have about no use for this, but to me its like art and it needed to come with me. They’re not huge dollars, but are they ever neat! I thought you guys would like to see how it operates – until getting in there I didn’t appreciate the finer points of these devices

I haven’t cleaned it yet, just playing with it and marveling. Some of the interesting features are noted below.

The mahogany case looks good in the house, expecting minimal domestic objections. The front window raise like a sash and has counter weights suspended inside so you can lift it to access the trays without removing it. The cords are broken so that needs a fix but the weights are there.



On the front panel, the centre knob raises rests on each side which take the weight off the beam. All adjustments are from outside the case so you keep it close to prevent air currents from effecting the balance. You can see the conical point on the beam the fits in the cup on the rest. The cones are at the front and second support at the back is a knife edge. So, when this knob is turned the balance beam lifts off its pivot and is register in perfect position. When lowered, and agate V on the beam sits on a flat agate on the column…that’s the only contact. The two trays hang by same arrangement



There’s a nice set of weights and tweezers, the weights are never to be touched by human hands, so it goes.


Underneath each tray is a pad to arrest any motion. These are raised and lowered by centre knob…or at least a knob to be, its missing. There is fine adjustment so you can set the pads to make contact at the same leve. This helps stop setting oscillating when you lower the pads. The far left knob on the front adjusts the position of the scale under the point.


The next decimal point, 1/10’s of a gram, comes from the movable weight on the beam. What’s really neat is the little crane that is raised and lower from a knob on the right side. It is used to pick up and move this weight. In this shot you can see the weight is lifted by the ‘crane’

The wheel cover the next two decimal points takes you to a milligram. It changes the length of a precisely made gold chain suspended from one side of the balance. It, including the position of the vernier is controlled by knobs on the outside. You don’t move the vernier to measure, just to zero. The vernier measures to 1/10 of a milligram.



Lastly there is a magnetic damper that slides in and out, how much damping depends its position. This is useful as the beam with oscillate for a long before it settles.