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This is the trusty Silva compass you remember from your D of E expeditions – a core piece of outdoor kit that's been trialled and tweaked over nearly a century since four Swedes first came up with the design in 1933. Featuring that iconic revolving, liquid-filled dial, the full-size base plate also includes a magnifying lens, various measuring scales, and silicon friction feet to grip your map better. You can even use it after dark – with luminous night nav markers that last for 6 hours after activation in light. Easy to use and accurate to 1°, there's a reason everyone from scout troops to mountain rescue teams rely on these reliable navigational tools.
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.
-Max, Verified Buyer
