An immigrant from Sweden, John Kampe settled in Waltham and worked at the Waltham Watch Co. until he went into business for himself, from 1914 to 1931, making and selling watch-related tools and equipment. In later years he was involved in watch repair and jewel manufacture and was granted four U.S. patents: an Indicator Attachment for Calipers (848,831 in 1907); Truing, Poising and Watchmakers Calipers (1,001,1278 in 1911) an improved caliper (2,039,226 in 1935) and a special watchmaker's screwdriver (1,361,335 in 1920).
With a 50 mm centre height and a bed 12-inches long, his nickel-plated lathe was of traditional, WW pattern (Webster-Whitcombe) and appears to have broken no new ground with, perhaps, the exception of the collets, these being 9 rather than 10 mm in diameter on their shanks. Although buying-in and re-branding watch lathes was not an uncommon occurrence at the time, in this case the lathe and some of its accessories, including a pump-centre faceplate, were marked as being manufactured by Kampe himself. One wonders what drove him to enter this crowed and somewhat limited market where decent profits would have been hard to come by.