Question for the Airbrush Historians ...

The airbrush in the picture is an Aerograph Model AEA
dual action gravity feed. It appears to be a 1970s
model. Very good airbrush, used mainly for
illustration.
  Aerograph is now part of the DeVilbiss Company and
was formed originally by Charles Burdick and his
friend Dr. Allen DeVilbiss (a dentist). Burdick
designed the original "Fountain Airbrush" (the first
internal mix airbrush)for Thayer and Chandler and
debuted it at the 1892-93 Columbia Exposition in
Chicago. That is where Thayer blew Liberty and Charles
Walkup's original airbrush off the market. Burdick
designed it and the next couple of generations of
Thayer brushes with the help of Thayer machinists Jens
Paasche and Olaous C. Wold (both Norwegians). Burdick
got tired of life in the US and returned to his native
England. Thayer retaine the US patents to his
airbrushes and he was granted the rights to those
patents in England. He partnered up there with
DeVilbiss who was looking for an aerosol method of
administering crude anesthetics topically for dental
patients. They used modified airbrushes for this
purpose. Aerograph Devilbiss went on to broaden the
designs to create full size spray guns, perfume
atomizers, nebulizers for asthma patients, and on and
on and on. Their company and heirs reap millions of
dollars a year to this day on patent royalties for
hundreds of products that they developed from the
airbrush. Aerograph is a somewhat obscure name, but in
reality, we owe much to them in the airbrush and
medical worlds. They did it all!
Hope this helps,
Scooter

Mike, thanks in advance for any help you and your buddy can give on this one.

Bgrigg - Thanks for the info, don't know why I had the impression Aerograph was no longer in business.

I'm pretty sure this is an older model for two reasons. One is the prominent 'Trade Mark' stamping. You don't see that anymore, today it's a small 'tm' - if you see it at all. Another (that I didn't mention) is that there is no seperate head assy. as on current 'brushes. Only the air cap is removeable and under that, the needle tip.

I got most of my info here - http://www.airbrushmuseum.com/ . (GREAT site!) There are some patent drawings for O.C. Wold's designs that show the air passage to the nozzle underneath the main body; here's one of them from 1917  - http://www.airbrushmuseum.com/airbrush_patents_17.htm . Wold and Burdick worked together at T&C for a while.