WWII field artillery glasses as spotting scope?

[EmbarkChief]

So, today my father tells me an old friend of his gave him a pair of Anti-Aircraft spotting binoculars and tripod that supposedly date to WWII. Now that I have my hands on them they look more like field artillery glasses than anti-aircraft. A google search really didn't produce much usable information and I was wondering if anyone here had ever seen these before. I'm thinking about setting them up at the farm for use as a spotting scope. These things are seriously heavy the bino's alone weigh about 20-25 lbs and seem to be made from brass. I was REALLY hoping they were going to be German but as you can see this set was made in France. I placed a standard buisness card in the pics for scale.

 

[docnyt]

It looks like it was supposed to be mounted on a boat or something. Great little piece of history there.

 

[EmbarkChief]

That is a possibility. They did come with a tri-pod that has spikes instead of pads on the "feet" which leads me to belive that it was for field use. With that said they don't really balance very well at all on the tripod and its a possibility that they don't really go with it despite the fact the bino's mount up perfectly on the post.

 

[Sam1911]

"Pour Semaphore" would seem to indicate they were used by the signal corps back before radio and field telephone communication was common to the guys on the lines.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_semaphore

Those are AWESOME!

 

[gunnutery]

Very cool.

 

[Jim Watson]

Very handsome, a nice souvenir, even if not a gun.

Don't ask on the internet, set them up and see how well they work compared to new Pacific Rim glass.
Then report back.

 

[Robert Wilson]

Have you looked through them? I think you might be surprised - even the vaunted German glasses of that era aren't nearly as good as today's $200-$300 binoculars. In your shoes I would definitely try them, but I'd be prepared to use them as a display item or curio after that first day in the field...

 

[armoredman]

Are you sure that's WWII? Almost looks WWI to my untrained eyes.
I agree, great curio, probably not as good as what you can buy, but if you are like me, perpetually broke, then go for it.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

The First World War seems more likely than the Second. We used a lot of French equipment, some good (aircraft), some bad (Chauchat automatic rifle) in the First.

 

[EmbarkChief]

Robert you are correct, there has been great strides in optical coatings in the past 50+ years that make todays glass pretty hard to beat. However, this example has a wonderful field of view and a nice stand so this weekend I'm going to take it down to the farm and set it up. Interestingly the octives rotate and give you the option of 12x or 20x. I'll try and get some more pictures of them this weekend when I have the chance to set them up properly. I did notice though that there seems to be no provision for focusing them? The big knob on top sets the distance between the octives to align them with your eyes.

 

[Robert Wilson]

I'm looking forward to hearing about your results.