Large Antique Toledo Scale

Updated August 8, 2026

Antique Toledo scale. Measures 69 T x 43W x 26 1/2L Among the most recognized brand names of the twentieth century is Toledo Scale, a company whose headquarters and primary design and production facilities were located in its namesake. One of the greatest achievements of the Toledo's Attic Committee (especially its point man for collections, Ernest W. Weaver, Jr.) during 1998 was securing possession of the corporate papers of Toledo Scale from the Mettler Toledo Corporation. Along with many cases of documents, ledgers, photographs, and other archival materials, the Toledo Scale Collection includes a series of paintings by Georges LaChance of the skilled artisans of the company. In this exhibit, Toledo's Attic Virtual Museum presents a few of the items from this vast collection. "The First Fifty Years" A Company History by Toledo Scale Company, 1951 HENRY THEOBALD founded Toledo Scale Company in 1901. He had seen opportunities for development in a scale invented by Allen DeVilbiss Jr. that for the first time combined the accuracy of the age-old gravity principle of weighing with the speed of an automatic indication of the weight and computed value. Mr. Theobald was a man of amazing energy, ability, and imagination, as was proved many times in the nearly twenty-five years that he headed the company. He was an "alumnus" of the National Cash Register Company and served there as general manager before coming to Toledo. Mr. Theobald was immediately faced with the two characteristic problems of most young companies: the raising of the necessary capital and the marketing of the product. He was successful on both counts, but it is a testament to the rapid growth during the succeeding years of his regime that the sales and manufacturing requirements sometimes ran a close race with the need for additional capital. The original directors of the company were Henry Theobald, Lenox S. Rose, J. B. Rose, and C. E. Young. The inventor, Allen DeVilbiss Jr., was the first factory manager. Within five years of the founding of the company, Toledos were appearing on grocery counters in all parts of the country. This was all the more of an achievement when it is recalled that the Toledo salesman was asking the grocer to invest from six to ten times more than the price of the simple balance scale he had been using. While the early Toledo Fan Scale was excellent for grocery weighing, it soon became apparent that a scale with a cylinder-type chart, giving more computations and added capacity, was needed for the meat markets. In 1906, the first Toledo cylinder scale was placed on the market glorified with a bright blue finish and encrusted with gold filigree. As with the first Toledo, this cylinder scale was also a pendulum-type (no springs) scale. It was also distinguished from some scales then on the market in that its price computations were meticulously accurate. These characteristics eventually evolved into the now famous slogan "No Springs Honest Weight." Und

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