Tuesday, November 4, 2008
These old eyes...
...have nothing on these.
These binoculars are probably from the late 1800's. The brass, black-painted eyecups are stamped "MARCHAND Fabt PARIS. The left brass ocular tube is stamped "Day & Night" on the top and the right brass ocular tube is stamped "U S Signal Service" on the bottom. The main body is also brass, but covered in black leather.
Interestingly, the optics on this piece are quite good - image clarity is high even though magnification seems to be only 1.5 - 2x. It's sad (to me) that many examples of Victorian optics can now be had for a song at antique stores everywhere.
No doubt the "steam punk" crowd is slowly turning these devices into fashion accesories even as you read this.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment