Kriegsmarine U boat binoculars, cxn 7x50

[Jill]

Hi all,


Accidentally posted this in the wrong forum, so sorry if anyone's reading it a second time!

My Dad recently dug out an old pair of binoculars given to him from his uncle years ago. He knew they were U-boat binoculars but didn't know much else about them. We've recently started trying to find a bit more information about them, but it seems like most of the interest surrounds Zeiss models, and we can't seem to find too much about the pair my Dad owns from general internet searches, so would be really interested to find out more about them if anyone can help?



Here's what we do know:



My great-uncle was on a ship called HMS Zephyr, a British destroyer, during the war, and we assume it was during this time that he came across the binoculars from a surrendered U-boat. They're 7x50 cxn (which we found is the code for the manufacturer Emil Busch), and serial number is 456902. I will attach a few photographs for interest.



It seems that this is the best place to ask, as there's a lot of information here, and we'd really appreciate if anyone has any more information about these binoculars.



Cheers,

Jill

[muckaroon1960]

Very nice pair of bino's and worth a lot of money! The Germans were very protective of their binocular manufacturers during the war and introduced codes, Emil Busch (cxn) of Rathenow and Carl Zeiss (blc) being two of many makers. Do they still work? Are the optics nice and clear?

Edited August 18, 2013 by muckaroon1960

[Jill]

Hi muckaroon, thanks for the reply! I wondered about the codes - so these were created to protect the manufacturers of this equipment? Or to protect the technology? Interesting, I hadn't considered that. My Dad says they're still in fine working order and the optics all in good shape. I have some photos showing the lenses, I will attach. They've been stored away for years so any action they've seen was during the war. How much do you think they are worth? Not finding much about them online, I assumed they were either fairly rare, or not of huge interest, wasn't sure which.

Thanks again,

Jill

[John]

Lovely pics - thank you for sharing!