Naval three draw telescope

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This is another medium sized three draw telescope, solidly constructed with brass draws and barrel, but the barrel is decorated and protected with an interesting woven sleeve. The ends of this sleeve are finished off with what looks like a length of rope, but like the sleeve this has no obvious ends, and on close inspection seems to use the same thin wire or nylon cord, wound into the solid structure of the rope. The material is not metallic, so must be something like nylon, but made of six or more strands in a flat band and then woven into the diamond patterned covering.

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This is certainly a man-made woven cover, and not a natural covering like the fishskin or other leather, suede or skin-based coverings often found on older telescopes and instruments. It is obviously very durable, but does not give a further clue as to what use the scope was designed for. It could still be for naval or military (army or cavalry) use, or even for sporting/shooting hobby use.

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The telescope itself is 180mm or 7” long when closed, 42mm diameter, and 460mm long (just over 18”) when fully extended. It has a brass end cap fitting over the objective, and a winking cover that can be used to seal the hole through the eyepiece. There are no marks of engravings on the brass body.

Dating this example is also difficult, but it could be Edwardian or from around WW1.

Reference #300

2 comments on “Naval three draw telescope

  1. Probably you can buy a similar old but maybe damaged telescope sold for spares on Ebay – but even this is hit and miss, unless the models are identical, as the mounting threads for the lenses are very variable!

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