Whether you are buying for yourself or as a gift for someone else chosing a traditional weather instrument is very subjective. Very often the first consideration is how it will look rather than what it does. You can chose instruments that are mounted together such as on a wooden plaque, disc  or  "banjo" or individual instruments that are metal finished such as brass or chrome and mount them on a wall or bulkhead yourself. You can buy many of the individual instrumnts on their own or as sets such as a barometer and a clock.

Traditional weather instruments come in many styles shapes and sizes never mind what weather element they are measuring. Today they are more often thought of as decorative, as indeed they are, rather than scientific but in fact all of these instruments serve a technical purpose.

Usually this purpose is telling you the temperature, humidity or barometric pressure. Mostly they show you you the current reading with perhaps maximum or minimum temperature since you last reset the indicators or change in barometer since you set the indicator. Recording instruments such as barographs will show you a history of the last 7 days. A barometer often has a tendency indicating what the weather might do so if the needle is falling then it would suggest rain or worse storm. If it is in the mid point it might suggest change. If it is rising then perhaps it the barometer might say fair or good.

For many purchasers the materials of manufacture and style of mounting are important as they will probably be determined by where the instrument is be located. Most of these instrumnets have similar workings although some maybe better engineered than others and therfore make them a little more accurate. Don't be fooled though because determining weather is not necessarily about absolute cuuracy rather it is about trends and changes.

From the category menu on the left chose the type of instruments you would like to see.