USUS
letter & egg scale

This letter and egg scale was designed by the firm Balduin Heller's Söhne, from Teplitz-Schönau, Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic. A Deutsches Reich Gebrauchs Muster -a cheaper patent- was granted February 1936. The German firm Philipp Jakob Maul from Hamburg has manufactured this letter scale under the model name USUS. The front of the housing has a name shield with left the model name USUS, in the middle the large brand mark of Ph.J. Maul and on the right the D.R.G.M. patent indication. The letter scale is self-adjusting to different slopes, has a clever mechanism with two counterweight-arms, this enables an easy reading of the chart in the whole range of 500 grams. In the first 50 grams of the chart each gram has a stripe of measure. Above this, there is a stripe per five grams. A checkered band helps the reading. The letter scale has a handy profiled top plate, this makes the scale suited for weighing eggs. However the text of the original D.R.G.M. patent application only speaks of "Briefwage" (in the old spelling, German meaning letter scale). A second-hand USUS is sometimes offered as an egg scale, namely because it's more profitable. This letter scale was made in dark red and also in black, see the photos at the bottom of this page. See here for more pictures of a black Usus and for the drawings of the patent. One sees also specimens offered without the three texts (USUS + Ph.J.Maul + D.R.G.M.). I have no idea if they ever were present. The shield with texts is a separate component that is attached with two screws on the scale housing.
Below some more pictures of this USUS letter & egg scale.