Vintage Collectible Thermometers

What a week we have had temperature wise here in Northern Virginia; the mercury has risen to over 95 for something like ten straight days and the humidity has been total craziness.  So much so that hundreds of thousands of people lost power due to a freak storm that rolled through from the west and knocked out power lines.  And they say that the temperature will not go down for another few days.  Phew!! . . . who invented the thermometer anyway?

If you are a historian or scientist, the answer to that question is not an easy one to answer, for really there were a few people who actually “invented” it.  Actually, it was more of many people improving on everyone else’s “invention.”  Galileo invented what some want to call a thermoscope and then others added to it; including Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, who later added the first scale to the thermometer back in 1714.  Then about thirty years later Anders Celsius added a scale and then a hundred years later Lord Kelvin added to it.
 

Given that they have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, there is bound to be one to compliment and decorate just about any room or home décor.  They come in all shapes and sizes and colors.  There are long and oblong ones; there are square one and round ones.  There are blue, green, yellow and a lot in Shabby Chic  white.  They are also made of many materials including plastic, tin and wood; and they were used by many companies to place their advertisements on. 

Now, those old thermometers of course have become antiques and vintage collectibles that many people pride themselves in collecting.  These thermometers appeal not only to scientific artifact collectors, but the advertisement collectors as well; such as Coke item collectors.  A lot of times the thermometers were also mounted on other functional items, such as clocks or mirrors.  So these thermometers are appealing to not only the thermometer collectors, but those folks who collect clocks or barometers as well.