A Swedish guy called Gunnar Tillander created the first ‘baseplate’ compass back in 1928 using Silva, the Swedish word for woods, as his marketing name. Prior to this a compass and protractor were required to get a bearing from map to ground or vice-versa, combining the two made life a lot simpler.

The No.5 we have here in the collection is an early version – circa 1950s – having the old 1 inch to 1 mile map scale on it. Silva seem to have kept the No.5 designation but have updated considerably.