Posted 10 years ago
Kydur
(103 items)
I'm not sure about the age of these, but I'm guessing late 1800s to early 1900s. I received them from an elderly woman who was still actually using them to watch birds and deer in her yard! She said they belonged to her mother who had them since she was a teenager.
The optics were quite dirty and I don't know how she managed to see anything out of them. I carefully disassembled everything and cleaned the glass. These type of field glasses are fixed (not adjustable to a person's eye separation) and are very difficult to use compared to modern binoculars with a hinged center post; but they sure look great in my display cabinet!
The leather is cracked and brittle and I've considered replacing it but of course that would compromise the authenticity so I've opted to just let them age gracefully and handle them as little as possible.
Does anyone have some tips for something (oil?) I can put on the leather to extend its life?
There is a Binoculars category, it is a sub-category in the Tools & Hardware - don't worry, CW staff will place it properly. These may in fact be "opera glasses" - yours look very similar to these that belonged to Abraham Lincoln
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/abraham-lincoln-opera-glasses_n_1446545.html
They do look similar, but then the photo in that article has a "Shutterstock" logo in the lower right so I suspect that some journalist just grabbed the first old-looking thing he could find off the net!
Thanks for the heads-up on the proper category.
Ah, I see - I should have known better than to trust what you read in the media. Here are the actual glasses;
http://prev.dailyherald.com/story/image/?image=54289&id=162568
Real close match to the Lincoln glasses, with the exception of a few design features and the leather wrap. Big difference in price though! $5 million dollars. Wow!
Neat old item!!
If you could see what I have seen.......LOL.
Thanks for the Post - Interesting !!
Just for fun I decided to look through the binoculars the wrong way and I managed to see everything that they've seen. Now I'm creeped out...!