18th Century Spyglass Telescope Nairne & Blunt

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18th Century Spyglass Telescope Nairne & Blunt - London

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18th Century Spyglass Telescope Nairne & Blunt - London

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Sold Date: 09/27/2007
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Tools

This is an 18th Century, single draw, ten sided, terrestrial telescope made by Nairne & Blunt of London. Construction is of brass and hardwood. Objective lens is 7/8" in diameter. Overall length when closed is 24" and about 27" in use. I estimate the power at about 10X. This glass makes a nice image which is quite sharp on axis. Front and rear sliding lens covers are both in place and work fine. I am not an expert but would date this to about 1775-1780 based on construction methods and design styling. The tube shows numerous chips and scratches but no cracks. The tube has not been refinished with polyurethane or any other such abomination. I applied a single coat of archival wax to protect what was t The outer lenses have a few cleaning marks and t is a tiny bit of fogging between the lenses of the doublet objective .This is common for such an old telescope. The four inside lenses are in good shape. They are pressed into collars which thread into the ends of the draw tube segments. The draw tube is a bit loose. This could be "fixed" by adjusting the tension fingers within the main tube but that is not something I would do. The rear flange on the wood tube has a small amount of looseness w the screws are starting to egg out their thread holes. This is a result of using the push-pull focus and not abuse. The front flange shows damage to one screw hole and is a tight fit on the wood tube (see photo below). The fact t is no hole beneath the damaged segment means the flange has been rotated and remounted at sometime in the past. The objective lens cell has some worn threads and can work loose inside its mounting flange. Looks like maybe it was over torqued at some time and the threads got shaved. Perhaps related to the remounted front cell? I applied a small piece of tape between the threads to make the mounting more firm. I have tried to describe what I think are all the important issues but if you have questions please ask them before you bid and I will try to answer them. I will double package this old scope for extra protection during shipping. Shipping weight will be 2.5 pounds. All in all this is still a nice example of what was state-of-art optics at the time of the American Revolution. Please ask any questions before you bid and I will do my best to answer them.