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RELAY/RICOH PICTURE GALLERY

Here you will find a few interesting scans and/or pictures relating to Relay/Ricoh brand slide rules. While we won't show you everything we have, we will show some things to help identify rules you may see. Many slide rules get purchased by collectors and never see the light of day again. Not here! We get rules, then put them up to assist other collectors!

At left, examples of two different paperboard boxes, which acted as the cases for slide rules when they were not sold with leather cases. Buyers in the US very much preferred leather cases, so these boxes were phased out fairly quickly I'd guess. Late R/R rules almost always have leather cases, while MANY early rules have these. The upper one in the scan came with a 1953 dated rule, while the lower came with a 1959 dated rule. Note the difference in the company name on the boxes. The upper name appears to have been used from 1950-'58, when the official company name was changed to that seen on the lower box. If you can see the name on the box in an auction, it will give a clue to the age range of the rule. Note that the "Relay" brand name was used by two differently named companies, (of course one became the next through merger/acquisition).
The scan of the cursor bar, seen above the boxes, is the cursor from the 1953 rule that came in the upper box. This is the only marked R/R cursor I've seen, other than SIC rules. Only one bar on the rule is so marked.

Time for something I've NEVER seen here. This picture is actually from a foreign auction. This is a mint, unused rule, still sealed in plastic. It's what we would call a RICOH 151, though it may be that this was one of the rules using another known-to-exist numbering scheme. In that scheme, our familiar 151 is the 2501, I believe. Anyway, note the ultra cool 2 part plastic case, and the brown covered manual with a very 1970's jumble of numbers on it. So far, none of the plastic cases are known to have been sold in the US, nor any manual with a cover like this. For all I know, these may be the norm for late rules in Japan, and ours seem odd over there! For the record, my Post Versalog 2 is in the plastic case, and I have a bunch of Faber-Castell rules in them, AND my Hemmi P262. I kinda like them! But I bet I'll never get a 151 in one. Not over here, at least!

    At left, two more boxes. These are later than those above, and both contained leather cased 5 inch pocket rules. The blue box had a 1964 dated 550 in it, with the usual instruction manual, covering non log-log rules, plus the darmstadt and electro types.
     The lower, red box is believed to be later, and is from a picture in another foreign auction. Note the small, single stapled manual, shown below, that came with this red boxed rule. ( Just what the rule was I don't recall, nor did I save a pic of it.)
     Variants other than these two types exist: boxes stylistically the same as the blue one but in GREEN exist for both 5 and 10 inch rules, and boxes just like the lower one exist but in GREEN also.
     It is highly likely, as with some other brands, that rules sold with the 2 part hardboard cases did not come inside an outer box like these. But, probably most leather cased rules did have some kind of outer box.

MORE IMAGES ON PAGE TWO!