(NGC) - Great find on old binoculars today.

[Gliderjohn]

Found these binoculars at an estate sale today. Paid eight dollars for them. They were filthy as was the case. The lens have cleaned up fine with no apparent damage of any kind. Need to work on cleaning the exterior. Every once in awhile you find the nut.









GliderJohn

[normzone]

Zeiss is neiss ...

[Chuck in Indiana]

Oh, jeeese..  I've heard about that Zeiss guy.. $8?? Buddy, they hosed you. <shaking head and shuffling off>

[Lannis]

Now that's a good deal!

I have my Dad's  Bausch and Lomb Mark 28 Mod 0 7x50 binoculars from his WWII service in the Western Pacific.   Sent them off a couple years ago to be disassembled, cleaned, re-aligned, and painted.   They're a pleasure to use, and the separate-focusing lenses for each side suit my odd vision just fine.

Lots of light-gathering capability - the magnification of a 7 x 50 doesn't swamp out the ability of the objective to gather light, so they work very well at night.

Sometimes I hold them up and scan the horizon and imagine doing it for hours at a time at sea, looking for a tiny periscope or wisp of smoke or speck in the sky, knowing that my life and everyone's aboard could be at stake ... I wouldn't like that very much.

Of course, the Zeiss binoculars might have been used on the conning tower of a U-boat to look for similar things .... !

Lannis

[Sheepdog]

I finally broke down and retired my old Navy B&L 7x35s for some Leupold Mojave 10x42s. Good glass is worth the money, but who wouldn't love a windfall like eight dollar Zeiss binoculars?! Great find!

[frozengoose]

Oh, jeeese..  I've heard about that Zeiss guy.. $8?? Buddy, they hosed you. <shaking head and shuffling off>

Back in the day, I worked as a land surveyor. While Wild and Kern made the best theodolites back then, the hot surveyor's level were made by Zeiss. I happened to work on projects that required a lot of level work and I can say that those Zeiss levels were pretty darn good. Don't know anything about their binoculars, but I think you got a good deal. Don't think you got hosed!

[Chuck in Indiana]

Back in the day, I worked as a land surveyor. While Wild and Kern made the best theodolites back then, the hot surveyor's level were made by Zeiss. I happened to work on projects that required a lot of level work and I can say that those Zeiss levels were pretty darn good. Don't know anything about their binoculars, but I think you got a good deal. Don't think you got hosed!

Just a little facetiousness..  Uh, yeah, Zeiss optics are fairly good.. I might even give John a chance to double his money if he wants to sell them. 

[Gliderjohn]

From Chuck:

I might even give John a chance to double his money if he wants to sell them. 

Maybe they will go up as a Cedar Vale auction item.
GliderJohn

[Gliderjohn]

Doing a little internet research, it appears this model was made between 1921 & 1936. The WWII followup military model had a center focus, these do not. It appears that they were very high quality for the day. Looks like prices for similar or poorer condition are ranging from $150 to $400. Think that I did good. Would be interesting to know the history behind them. The estate sale had one other pair that was a cheap brand and the center focus was not working, for $5, I passed.
GliderJohn

[keuka4884]

You got a great buy. They won't have modern coatings but the glass is as good as it gets.

[Robert]

Due to 'lead-free' regs, (please excuse politically related content), some new glass is not as good as old glass.

Glass with lead in it is better, for optics purposes.

That is not an Optic Porpoise.

The Chinese ignore the lead regs;  so some of their cheap glass is pretty dang good.