Here is a beautiful vintage balance beam postal scale by the Triner Scale & Mfg. Company of Chicago, Illinois, circa 1939. This lovely little artifact of a time gone by was made by Triner for the US Postal Service and, indeed, is engraved as "Property of U.S.P.O. Dept." From an era when Air Mail was a special service and carried a premium, this scale weighs from 1 to 9 ounces using a sliding brass weight on a brass beam. There are no "in-between" increments... your Air Mail letter is either one ounce or the next one up! No springs are involved in determining an official weight, just the simple age-old principle of leverage. Black steel casing and a sweet brass platform matching the brass beam and weight. Very clean and very accurate.  See the photos. 5" tall and 4" X 9" footprint. Perfect for something or other!  

Lastly, here is a bit of trivia from the Made in Chicago Museum: "Company founder James M. Triner had been a former underling of the mighty Pelouze Scale & MFG Co. As a particularly talented mechanical engineer, however, he grew tired of developing innovative new devices only to pass the rewards on to the aristocratic William Nelson Pelouze. And so, in the spring of 1903, a 30 year-old Triner officially broke free and organized his own manufacturing business with $20,000 capital. He moved into a plant at 128 S. Clinton Street (Chicago) and set forth building spring scales in a city that already included not only Pelouze, but the Hanson Brothers, American Cutlery, and the Chicago Scale Company, among others." Amazingly, Triner is still in business, though is now located in Olive Branch, Mississippi!

 TRINER AIR MAIL