Poor tree.

Here's a big U.S. Navy Mark 74 telescope - once used for sighting big guns (> 5") on navy ships. The builder's plate indicates a manufacture date of 1944, so this sight may have helped sink some Japanese or German ships - who knows?



This was my first purchase many years ago on the fledgling E-Bay. It's mostly brass, and weighs about 20 lbs. I won the auction for something like $5.00, and I think shipping was around $15.00. The scrap value alone probably makes it a good buy!

Anyway, the optics are good (if a little dirty), and the crosshairs are fine.

Here's a shot through it drawing a bead on my neighbor's tree with no color filter:


Here's a shot through it drawing a bead on my neighbor's tree with a yellow filter:


Here's a shot through it drawing a bead on my neighbor's tree with a red filter:


You're thinking: "What's that poor tree ever done to you?", right?

Nothing. Which is why I ended up not shooting it with the 5" naval gun sticking out of my living room window.

It's Fish Knife Friday #10

I smell something fishy...

And it's probably this swordfish bill sword. These were all the rage in New England during the heydays of commercial swordfishing and whaling. As Quint from JAWS notably quipped:

"When I was a lad every boy in town wanted to be a harpooner or a swordfisherman"...or something like that.

Anyway, while not a weapon per se, I can attest to the fact that this bone-hard bastard will easily draw blood and raise a handy bruise on one's nose - especially whilst one is trying to hang it on the wall of Flintlock's Arsenal...

Ribbit...

O.K. - bad joke. This is a bayonet frog. This is just the canvas item that would have held a bayonet and its scabbard to a soldier's belt. This example is American, and is from WW1.

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.

I got you...

in my sights.

This is a M15 Grenade launcher sight, leftover from WWII. A good idea in principle, although reportedly not the best invention in practice...the link tells the tale.

This guy...

..sure has bad ass taste in head gear. He's bronze, and appears to be holding a drum of some sort. His costume looks decidedly non-American and his expression implies considerable - er - medicinal - influences. I don't know whether this 6" piece is 300 years old or made as some junior college art project 10 years ago.

Somehow, it seems like I should be swapping him for a bag of sand in a booby trapped temple somewhere in a South American jungle.