Can you add to the list of sextant numbers?

[Andrew M McKenna]

Gary

Not to quibble or anything, but the guy on your link who you claim DOES KNOW something about Brandis Sextants, Mr. Morris, describes the instrument held by Admiral Byrd as being a sextant:

"I recently acquired  a Brandis nautical vernier sextant without case, telescope, or any shades. It appeared to have an extra mirror in front of the horizon mirror and I recognised it as an early bubble sextant of the type used by the then Commander Richard Byrd on his claimed flight to the North Pole in 1926. There are several magazine photographs extant that show Byrd in posed pictures, using a similar sextant, this one, for example:"

Then he goes on to describe it as a quintant:

"The one Byrd is using is a full-size Brandis vernier quintant with an arc of 180 mm radius reading to 30 seconds, whereas my example is unusually small for a vernier quintant, having an arc radius of only 140 mm, also reading to 30 seconds,...."

So, what is it, a sextant or a quintant? 

Seems your expert can't get it right either, and is prone to the same problem as Mr. Jacobs, calling all of these instruments generally "sextants" and then further refining that depending upon the actual arc covered by the instrument. 

I think you might cut a little bit of slack to Mr. Jacobs if you are going to tout Mr. Morris as being an expert.  You can't have it both ways.

Andrew

[Gary LaPook]

Gary

Not to quibble or anything, but the guy on your link who you claim DOES KNOW something about Brandis Sextants, Mr. Morris, describes the instrument held by Admiral Byrd as being a sextant:



Seems your expert can't get it right either, and is prone to the same problem as Mr. Jacobs, calling all of these instruments generally "sextants" and then further refining that depending upon the actual arc covered by the instrument. 

I think you might cut a little bit of slack to Mr. Jacobs if you are going to tout Mr. Morris as being an expert.  You can't have it both ways.

Andrew

Oh yes I can. We all know that the word sextant has come to be used to generally describe all of these instruments, be they octants, sextants or quintants, much like the word Xerox has come to be the common name for all copying machines, no matter the name of the actual manufacturer. Mr. Morris was using "sextant" in its generic sense while Mr. Jacobs was not. The reason that I can have it both ways is that Mr. Jacobs, himself, carefully defined a sextant as covering 90° so he was clearly, carefully, not using the word "sextant" in its generic form but in its accurate, specific form. And he got it wrong.

Mr. Jacobs wrote, on HIS WEBSITE:

"NOTE: A quintant has a range of arc of 144° compared to a sextant which reads to 90°. "

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I have attached a photo of Richard Byrd using his sextant (generic usage) while flying over the south pole. From the length of the arc is is clearly a quintant. Also clearly a quintant is the "Byrd Sextant" number  5292 posted on the TIGHAR website. Looking at the photo of the "sextant box" for this instrument we see that the Certificate of Inspection also uses the generic "sextant" for the quintant that was actually in the box.

gl

[Daniel Paul Cotts]

New eBay listing Brandis # 5577 and NO # 4485
Listing

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

New eBay listing Brandis # 5577 and NO # 4485
Listing

That one was on the list.  We had a 1944 collimation date, but, after further review, I see that "1941" is a better reading of the label.

[Jimmie Tyler]

  Furthermore, I have a distant relative, whom lives in town, that I am told has a extensive collection of antique sextants. I am in the midst of making arrangements to examine his sextant collection.

  Sorry for my late response. I went and checked out the collection, It proved to be much older than anything of interest to us. All of them were from the 1800's.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

  Sorry for my late response. I went and checked out the collection, It proved to be much older than anything of interest to us. All of them were from the 1800's.

Oh, well.  The kind of initiative you showed is what we need to push the sextant project forward.  Thanks!

[Jimmie Tyler]

  Hey Marty, I don't seem to see this Brandis on the table..   http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/subject-to-vat-sextant.-an-unusual-black-an-1-c-oc49e9s6w6   There is no picture But the numbers listed in the description are 3239, and Navy # 0.850.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

  Hey Marty, I don't seem to see this Brandis on the table..   http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/subject-to-vat-sextant.-an-unusual-black-an-1-c-oc49e9s6w6   There is no picture But the numbers listed in the description are 3239, and Navy # 0.850.

I'm going to guess that there is a transcription error.  We haven't seen any decimal NO numbers.  Instead of Navy # 0.850, I've put it in the table as Navy O. #850 (reading the "O" as "Observeratory" rather than a zero), which makes it match very closely with the preceding entry:

Brandis	3227	845
Brandis	3239	850

[Jimmie Tyler]

I'm going to guess that there is a transcription error.  We haven't seen any decimal NO numbers.  Instead of Navy # 0.850, I've put it in the table as Navy O. #850 (reading the "O" as "Observeratory" rather than a zero), which makes it match very closely with the preceding entry:

Brandis	3227	845
Brandis	3239	850

I agree,the decimal NO number puzzled me as well. I assumed that it was meant to be NO #850.

[John Kada]

Regarding the sextant with Brandis number 3239 and N.O. number 850, an important point to note is that the seller reports the sextant as "Brandis & Sons Mfg. Co. Brooklyn". As I explained here, Brandis went by three slightly different names during its existence as an instrument manufacturer. 'Brandis & Sons Mfg. Co.' was the name used from 1916 onwards so that indicates the sextant was manufactured no earlier than 1916. It would be interesting to subscribe to the vendor's web site and find out why the seller indicated it to be circa 1918; I would guess that that 1918 is the date of the eccentricity certificate. If so, that would provide a 'no later than' date for this sextant, and the date range it was assigned N.O. number 850 is probably 1916-1918.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Regarding the sextant with Brandis number 3239 and N.O. number 850, an important point to note is that the seller reports the sextant as "Brandis & Sons Mfg. Co. Brooklyn". As I explained here, Brandis went by three slightly different names during its existence as an instrument manufacturer. 'Brandis & Sons Mfg. Co.' was the name used from 1916 onwards so that indicates the sextant was manufactured no earlier than 1916. It would be interesting to subscribe to the vendor's web site and find out why the seller indicated it to be circa 1918; I would guess that that 1918 is the date of the eccentricity certificate. If so, that would provide a 'no later than' date for this sextant, and the date range it was assigned N.O. number 850 is probably 1916-1918.

OK, I've added the information about the production eras to the sextant page and, for what it's worth, added the information to the entry for 850.

I'm not going to try to pump the extra information into other table entries today.  So far as I know, this was not something we were tracking when the sextant project began.  I'll try to pay attention to the item and include it in comments from now on. 

[Jimmie Tyler]

 Hello All,

Was just reading and researching, and I came across this collection of Brandis. http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/cons.cfm?id=6298  Some of the numbers that I see, seem a bit odd, in comparison to the table. Using the magnifier, you can see that there are stenciled numbers on the sextants, and boxes..

[richie conroy]

Hi All

Could the box under Fred Noonan's hat be a sextant box ?

You can see the hat clearly overlap's side's of box so we have good idea of box size.

Worth a closer look i believe

Thank's Richie

[richie conroy]

Hi All

Could this be the hat that is on the box,  in above photo's ?

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Was just reading and researching, and I came across this collection of Brandis. http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/cons.cfm?id=6298  Some of the numbers that I see, seem a bit odd, in comparison to the table. Using the magnifier, you can see that there are stenciled numbers on the sextants, and boxes..

Yes, there are numbers all over the place in those photos.

I don't know what to make of them myself.