This months measure was a gift with one of the most successful of Italian comics. It is cheap, is simple to make and, most importantly, introduced children to the wonderful world of maps and working with them.

Corriere dei Piccoli, (Courier of the Little Ones), was an Italian weekly magazine for children and contained stories, games and illustrated adventures. It was the first Italian periodical to feature comic strips and was first published 27 December 1908 as a supplement to Italian evening newspaper Corriere dela Sera but was also sold separately, with a final edition in January 1996, by then published as a stand alone product.

For a few years, a free ‘surprise’ was included with each edition of the comic, from gift number one with comic number 37 on 15 September 1977 (cost 500 lire), to gift number 187, with comic number 21 on 22 May 1981 (cost 1000 lire). These gifts were wide-ranging, anything from a ‘suncatcher’, to a skipping rope, water pistol, painting set, and many others.

Corriere dei Piccoli number 28 was dated 11 July 1979 (costing 800 lire) and included as usual, a “surprise”- a free gift. Surprise number 93 could be constructed to make “il chilometrometro”– this was a ‘meter for measuring kilometres’, effectively a very cheaply made curvimetre that could be used for measuring curves and distances on a map. I include an image of an unopened comic, with a blue coloured measure, taken from a short YouTube film. This differs in colour from my red example. There may have been other colours than these two. There are no indications as to which plastics factory produced it. The only markings on the instruments are the publication’s name on each side of the handle.

The Corriere dei Piccoli chilometrometro has some similarities to another instrument, that has previously featured as map measure of the month. That was Pif gadget No. 342 ‘le curvimètre’, dating from just four years earlier, in 1975. This was another free gift that accompanied a children’s comic. However ‘Pif’s ‘le curvimètre’ came fully constructed while chilometrometro had to be assembled by the child. Thus providing a tad more play value and learning experience.

Il chilometrometro is quite a large instrument; measuring 70mm across the flats of the hexagonal shaped body. The handle is 75mm long, making the measure 145mm in total length. The two halves of the body, when clipped together, are 7.15mm deep/thick, or 10.5mm deep when measured across the two dial needles. As befitting its cheap plastic construction, it weighs a scant 18g.

Il chilometrometro is effectively a children’s toy, a gadget, cheaply made for self-assembly. Other than the two adhesive paper scales, the entire construction of the curvimetre is from press-fit plastic. No screws or glueing of plastic parts is required. But regardless, it works.

The comic contains a two page explanation on how to construct and use the instrument, together with a short comic strip on the woes associated with trying to measure a distance between two points on a map. The strip was created by the Italian cartoonist and writer Giuseppe Maurizio Laganà (1944 – 2016) and included the usual characters that he drew in the regular ‘surprise’ comic strips. These were the large sea captain Brok, accompanied by three small children (here proffering a chilometer in the final panel) and a white dog.

Translation of instructions on how to assemble the map measure:

1. To make the ‘measure’ (chilometrometro), detach all the pieces, file away any imperfections and remove the stickers from the protective paper.
2. Stick the stickers to the two outer parts of the kmm, so that the zero coincides with the triangular arrow printed on the plastic.
3. Place the gear wheel as shown in the photo and fix it from the outside with the hand. Add the smaller wheel to the appropriate peg.
4. The teeth of the small wheel must interest with those of the large wheel. At this point interlock the two kmm halves.
5. Complete by fixing the hand in the hole in the centre of the sticker and get the map in one of the four scales indicated…
6. Use maps with scales of 25,000, 50,000, 100,000, 200,000. Run the wheel of the kilometer along the road to travel and read the number indicated by the hand on the coloured band corresponding to the scale of your map.

Once the adhesive dials have been stuck to the plastic case and the measure fully assembled, the chilometrometro has scales on each face. One side has 1:25 000 and 1:50 000 scales, the other has 1:100 000 and 1:200 000 scales. Both paper dials on my example have slight staining. This may be from the adhesive or may be third party. Rolling the chunky toothed tracking wheel along a line on a map rotates the pointer on both dials and indicates the distance measured. Not that I can see anyone doing this, but 1:25 000 and 1:50 000 are coincidentally the two scales used on the UK’s Ordnance Survey Explorer and Landranger maps, useful for walking and many other activities, and the instrument could potentially be used with these

This months chilometrometro/map measure is a rare survivor and now over forty years old. Despite its very cheap manufacture and extremely simple and uncomplicated construction, it still works, of a fashion! This is probably down to it having enjoyed only a brief period of use, following being eagerly constructed by an Italian child in 1979, then languishing in storage somewhere in the intervening years. It was never intended for ‘serious’ navigation, but no doubt taught children some rudiments of cogs, gearing, mechanical engineering, maps, measuring and navigation. If so, then job done.

I have looked at many higher quality and far better constructed curvimeters and similar measuring instruments, many of which have proven capable of delivering many years of sustained use, unsurprisingly providing far greater accuracy than il chilometrometro. Links to these can be found here.