MIT Museum
Slide Rule Exhibition Planning Workshop.
Report and images by Jim Cerny.   December 2004.

In 2004, InteliCoat Technologies made a gift of the K&E factory samples cabinet of slide rules to the MIT Museum. On November 6, 2004, MIT Museum curator Debbie Douglas made a presentation to the East Coast Oughtred Society Meeting, describing that gift and offering to host the 2005 meeting at the MIT Museum.

On December 8, 2004, Debbie Douglas organized a workshop to help in planning for the exhibition of the gift of the K&E factory collection. These pictures were taken informally by Jim Cerny with a 2.1 megapixel Nikon CoolPix 950 camera. Click on each thumbnail image to see the full version. See also the MIT Museum home page.

Part 3

Image Description

The K&E factory cabinet.

The K&E cabinet. The K&E factory used this cabinet to store examples of K&E rules and those of competitors. There was evidently another cabinet for storing longer rules, with its current existence and location unknown. At one point in the 1970s, Jack Burton, a K&E VP, was given permission to take rules from the cabinet. These were auctioned as part of his collection in 1995, at the West Coast (Palo Alto) meeting of the Oughtred Society.

K&E cabinet detail.

K&E cabinet drawers open.

K&E cabinet drawers open.

Factory samples inventory, page 1 of 19 pages, circa 1970. Joe Soper provided a copy of this inventory to Michael P. O'Leary, who then scanned it and placed the full set of the pages on the Yahoo "sliderule-trade" list, in a folder in the Files area. The list was kept by Harry Schneider in the Hoboken plant.

Dated January 20th, 1943 and signed A.W. Keuffel, the letter reads:
"Herewith a Slide Rule known as a Vest Pocket Slide Rule made by Guedon, Camden, New Jersey. I do not think they will have much success selling this rule, because of the inherent disadvantages this metal rules has over our regular Pocket Slide Rule. Nevertheless, at the wholesale price of $.50. I do not see how they are able to make this article. After you have examined it, turn it over to Mr. Schneider for filing with the samples."

Pickett as a defendant in patent litigation.

K&E 4095 triangular metal rule with finger-type cursor. This rule was also made in a glass cursor version. Very few examples of either variation are known.

Patent 603,695 (p.1) for the K&E model 4095 triangular rule.

K&E's Goodchild mathematical chart.

Goodchild triangular rule to accompany chart. (example by Ed Chamberlain)

Goodchild catalog page.

That's all folks!

return to Part 1, or, return to Part 2