In the early '70s, while travelling on foot throughout Asia for several years, I purchased what has since been my favorite tire gauge. An antique, it was handmade by a master craftsman who apprenticed under a number of highly-regarded European tire gauge makers whose names, due to their obscurity, I will not bother to list here.
Both the quality of the gauge and its beauty are truly second to none, with inlaid mother-of-pearl highlights (the shell collected off the cost of a small, now-underwater Pacific island, formerly renowned for its mother of pearl but now lost to the ages) and readings that are, to this day, accurate to one-one-billionth of a percent. The serial number reveals that it was second in a series of only fifteen ever produced, the first of which belonged to Henry T. Ford and is kept in a vault in a heavily-guarded Swiss bank. Seven of those produced were destroyed before they could ever be sold, simply to increase the gauge's rarity. The other six are unaccounted for but could reasonably be expected to fetch upwards of five to six million dollars at tire gauge auction.
I, of course, have a number of others in my tire gauge collection and have been considering having one custom made, but I cannot forsee a situation in which any other tire gauge could ever replace the above described as my favorite.
Regards, gentlemen.
n my dad had them too...but somebody in shop used ta say to me that the best gages were german...is this true?
