Must. Drink. Coffee.
"The patient is sitting up and taking nourishment."
Two mugs of ingested, along with solid foods of various kinds and quantities.
Brandis 4193
N.O. 4161
Inspected 1919-04-02
Pictures show 4193 stamped on arc and inked on the box. N.O. 4161 also on arc, according to the text. Maker's number 5317 on the inspection certificate. So there is quite a discrepancy! Wrong Box.
OK, Aristotle says, "One swallow does not a summer make."
And other sources say, "The argument from authority is the weakest possible argument."
I say that arguments that say "other sources say" is the weakest possible version of the argument from authority.
But we do have one (1) instance in which there is a discrepancy between the collimation certificate and the numbers on the box.
This means that in at least one (1) instance, the mixup happened while an instrument was still in service.
Stuff happens. How often it happened back in the 1930s is anybody's guess. But I don't think it is the least bit likely that the box for a sextant known to have been assigned to the Bushnell circa 1939 was with AE and FN in 1937.
There is no physical law that would prevent that sequence of events from happening (box switched; box goes to Fred; sextant stays with Bushnell; box gets flown to Niku and used by castaway in 1937; Bushnell visits the island in 1939). Strange things do happen. Even if the Bushnell brought the box, it is strange that it got left behind. But that seems to be a vastly better hypothesis than supposing that Fred might have brought the box to the island.