vintage porcelain river depth markers

These Vintage River Depth Markers were originally affixed to bridge posts and used as water gauges to see the depth during high and low tides.

Somebody please buy them or I will.

5 Comments leave a comment below

  1. Ha! I’ve been a long-time reader and I had to laugh when I saw this post… my company is one of the biggest suppliers of these, but they are typically called staff gages. They are still widely used today, often to check the calibration of new digital water level sensors. They are also used to determine the rate of flow in streams.

  2. Make me think of my old man. He’s a hydrologist and all-around water geek.

  3. I bought one of these the day it showed up here – for some reason it struck me as a really nice/odd addition to our odd house. Unfortunately the box arrived completely empty, and as my first Etsy purchase the experience wasn’t the most endearing.

    Kudos to the seller, however, as they made good and refunded everything. I highly recommend taking a look at their other items: http://www.etsy.com/shop/lacklusterco

  4. EyePulp, that’s too bad. I’ve bought a few things from Esty, though never that seller, and have never had any problems.

    If you’re still interested in having a staff gage for your house, we do sell them on my website if you want one. I don’t want to be too commercial here so I won’t list anything in the comment, but click on my name if you want to see them on our site.

  5. Thanks for the information, Adam! It took me a while to figure out what these were originally used for, and after some research, I discovered their purpose.

    And again, EyePulp, I’m truly sorry that you were the subject of staff gage hijackers! Unfair to us all, really, but unfortunately, these things happen more often than they should..