It's more than 90 years since four Swedes invented the Silva baseplate compass in 1933. And while the fundamental design has remained recognisably iconic, there's been an awful lot of innovation and fine-tuning since then. Here, then, is a vintage-style compass that looks like a classic model you might have inherited from your grandad, but boasts all the performance and features of its modern equivalents. Accurate to one degree, that famous rotating ring is laser-etched aluminium, and you've got map measuring scales in both millimetres and inches so you can read pretty much any map, old or new. The baseplate includes a magnifying lens for close map work, while luminous markings make the Type 1933 ideal for night nav. Among the most significant modern features that you won't notice is the global needle, which means the compass will work accurately in all three of the world's magnetic zones. And our favourite feature? Call us sentimental, but it's got to be the old-style Silva logo from back in the day.
It’s a bit of a cliché to say, ‘this brand needs no introduction…’, but sometimes it really doesn’t. If you ever did scouts, guides or cadets, got epic blisters on a D of E expedition or went on an outward bounds residential, chances are you did it with a Silva compass in the pocket of your boil-in-the-bag cagoule.
Like so many world-changing inventions, the Silva compass began as a problem that needed solving. Back in the day, your standard compass wobbled all over the shop, making it tricky and time-consuming to get a decent reading. That is, until 1933, when four Swedes invented a liquid-filled compass. The resistance from the fluid slowed and stabilised the needle, meaning you could nail a reliable bearing in seconds. Navigation was never the same again.
But iconic as the compasses are, they’re only one part of the Silva story. They were one of the first companies to make reliable electric head torches for the outdoors, and they’ve also branched out into optics, trekking kit and other navigational gear. Tried and tested for the better part of a century, Silva’s precision instruments have literally been the difference between life and death for generations of outdoor adventurers – and as brand pedigree goes, that’s pretty much impossible to beat.
