I got a chance to see and touch a piece of history today, one of the
original 13 sets of gage blocks made by CE Johansson!
I went to the online local paper to check yard sales and see if there
was any I ought to go look at. On the front page, just before
clickiing the Classifieds link, I saw a headline "Yardsale Eureka".
Checked out the link to find a local woman had purchased the set years
ago for $20, and would have them on display at the local Ford dealer
today.
I took my copy of Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy and let her copy
the section on Johansson, and took a couple pictures of the set.
She has documentation certifying it as Johansson's personal set, and
she's going to get me a copy of that.
Here's the link to the article in today's local paper:
http://tu.us.publicus.com/article/20050528/NEWS/105280094

If I'd seen these at a museum, they'd have been behind glass. It was
neat to be able to actually touch them. No, didn't handle the blocks
themselves and I made sure to tell her not to handle them.

Sure wish this had been my yard sale score...

Jon