I hope you'll forgive me, but I just had to toot my horn here about a
couple of purchases I made recently on ebay: a Sans & Streiffe No.
312, and a Scientific Instruments No. 1510...and both within a week
of each other.

Now, for those of you who are familiar with these models your
probably saying to yourself: "Wait a minute, knucklehead, you just
bought the same slide rule twice..." Yes, that's true; they were
manufactured by Relay/Ricoh in Japan, and rebadged Ricoh 151's for
distribution under these and other names such as Lutz (151P), and
Lafayette (F-428, 99-7055) just to name a few. But just as one would
pride themselves on collecting Picketts or K&E's, this is my absolute
favorite slide rule.

Why? Well. I'm glad you asked :)

1. The scale set is my personal favorite:

LL/0, K, L, A][B, S, ST, C][D, DI, P, LL0
LL/1, LL/2, LL/3, DF][CF, CIF, CI, C][D, LL3, LL2, LL1

Some of the scales are extended for what I assume to be
better recognition and interpretation.

2. The SR is 14 inches as opposed to 12...all the Freudian
implications aside, I like SR's a little larger.

3. It's made of bamboo with a white laminate overlay.

There are some small differences, though. The S&S has what appears to
be chrome, or chrome plated braces; the SIC has a self documenting
cursor. I haven't decided yet, but one will end up under glass while
the other becomes my standard work horse replacing the K&E 68-1210
that I always tout off to the can with in lieu of a good book, or
magazine.

You have to appreciate the irony here: I'm not a huge collector, but
I've been waiting for a SR like the Lutz 151P to appear on ebay for
some time (at least since I first saw one on the web page of a guy
named Paul Burgess - http://www.paulburgess.org/index.html). Not only
do I find it, but two within a week...one for use, and the other as a
collectors item. Fortune for me appears to come in fits and snatches.
Life is sweet.

My best to all.

Johnny :)

P.S. For those of you who are interested, there is a website that
discusses Relay/Ricoh SR's and their variants in some detail. The
site is by a guy named D. Davis and the link is
http://www.geocities.com/usra482b/index.html