What was Fred's Sextant and its box?

[John Ousterhout]

richie sez: "Bausch & Lomb A6 or Pioneer, #12-36" or both"
Both need to have their boxes definitively identified.
The B&L box almost certainly looked like the one in GL's picture, in which case Gatty would have recognized it as an aircraft octant box.
The box for Pioneer #12-36 was likely to also be an easily recognized aircraft octant box, but I don't know for sure. Yet.

[Richard C Cooke]

The implication is that the Niku sextant box was almost certainly not from the Earhart flight, and may not even have been from the Norwich City.  This would mean that the site 7 castaways were from some 3rd source.

Comments are envited.

Since the Norwich City was a British merchant ship it probably had a British sextant. 

Googling it produced this link for a replica:
http://www.brassbinnacle.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=br1&Product_Code=STL-38&Category_Code=SX1

RC

[richie conroy]

Charles A. Lindbergh sextant

http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/a-bausch-lomb-bubble-sextant-used-by-charles-a.-1-c-i19xpqa16q

[richie conroy]

Wwii Us Army Airforce Aircraft Sextant Type A8a Bausch Lomb Optical Case



Ww Ii Us Army Air Force Aircraft Sextant W/original Box - $300.00

http://londonsextant.localdailybargin.com/catalog/army-sextant.html

[richie conroy]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WWII-US-Army-Airforce-Aircraft-Sextant-type-A-8A-Bausch-Lomb-Optical-Case-/170709954573?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27bf1b300d#ht_500wt_969

even better image  :)

[richie conroy]

Gary Lapook nice site  :) http://www.freelists.org/post/navlist/Website-with-flight-navigation-resources,7

[John Ousterhout]

Richie and Gary (and anyone else joining this thread): The prevalance of WWII stuff has sort of contaminated the search for 1937-era stuff.  By the start of the war, things like sextant boxes and aircraft octant boxes had become so standardized that we take the box shapes for granted.  The few years before the war were not quite so standardized, and there is room for doubt about the identification of any particular pre-war box and what was stored in it.  That's part of the puzzle that TIGHAR has been struggling with.  If the flight had occured in 1941, then the box would be easy to identify.  If the flight had occured in 1931, then the different shape boxes of that era would also have been easy to identify. The "Gallagher" box  seems likely to belong to the early 1930's (or earlier) era marine vintage.  This seems a bit too early for a box that might have been on the Earhart flight, but doesn't entirely rule it out.  I believe we can help TIGHAR clarify what happened at the end of the Earhart flight with good analysis of what is known and what is likely.  We know that aircraft octants of WWII vintage could not have been on the flight, for example.  Pictures of WWII boxes are nice, and help identify what later era boxes looked like, but don't much help us learn what happened to Fred and Amelia.

[Gary LaPook]

The implication is that the Niku sextant box was almost certainly not from the Earhart flight, and may not even have been from the Norwich City.  This would mean that the site 7 castaways were from some 3rd source.

Comments are envited.

Since the Norwich City was a British merchant ship it probably had a British sextant. 

Googling it produced this link for a replica:
http://www.brassbinnacle.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=br1&Product_Code=STL-38&Category_Code=SX1

RC

No that is not what a real sextant looks like. That is a cheap decorator not for real use, there are lots of these made in India.

gl

[Gary LaPook]

Richie and Gary (and anyone else joining this thread): The prevalance of WWII stuff has sort of contaminated the search for 1937-era stuff.  By the start of the war, things like sextant boxes and aircraft octant boxes had become so standardized that we take the box shapes for granted.  The few years before the war were not quite so standardized, and there is room for doubt about the identification of any particular pre-war box and what was stored in it.  That's part of the puzzle that TIGHAR has been struggling with.  If the flight had occured in 1941, then the box would be easy to identify.  If the flight had occured in 1931, then the different shape boxes of that era would also have been easy to identify. The "Gallagher" box  seems likely to belong to the early 1930's (or earlier) era marine vintage.  This seems a bit too early for a box that might have been on the Earhart flight, but doesn't entirely rule it out.  I believe we can help TIGHAR clarify what happened at the end of the Earhart flight with good analysis of what is known and what is likely.  We know that aircraft octants of WWII vintage could not have been on the flight, for example.  Pictures of WWII boxes are nice, and help identify what later era boxes looked like, but don't much help us learn what happened to Fred and Amelia.

Have you found any pictures of boxes for the Pioneer octant that look different than the photo I posted?  Like I said before, the shape of the octant determines the shape of the box. Anyway, whatever the shapes of the octant boxes in that era for the Poineer and the B&L, Gatty was familiar with them all and would have identified them if the Gardner box had been for an aeronautical octant.

gl

[richie conroy]

i think thats a sextant by freds feet

http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=656&CISOBOX=1&REC=3

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

I think that's a sextant by fred's feet

The caption calls it a "valise."  It looks more like a briefcase to me than any of the sextant boxes we've seen so far.

[John Ousterhout]

Much too big and wrong shape for a sextant or octant case.  A valise is about right.  I've got a lightweight case for charts of about those proportions, made of stiff cardboard leatherette.  The top has two flaps that overlap, with two latches that hold it closed and a handle sticking up through the top for carrying like a suitcase.

A problem with simple photos of octants and sextants is their lack of scale.  The picture Gary posted with Harry Manning showing Amelia a Bausch & Lomb aircraft octant gives a pretty good sense of its size.

[richie conroy]

http://valisegallery.org/

if u look at the picture the first versions of the suitcase were wooden boxes

[richie conroy]

http://shoestringsplendour.wordpress.com/2011/08/

[John Ousterhout]

gl asks: "Have you found any pictures of boxes for the Pioneer octant that look different than the photo I posted?"
I haven't found many pictures of Pioneer boxes at all, and none from 1936 or older. You didn't say what year your example represents.  I have found pictures of boxes for Bausch & Lomb, which look like a marine sextant box until you look inside.  The internal furniture is completely different from what is needed to hold a marine sextant, as you well know.  WWII aircraft octant boxes were completely different from old style marine sextant boxes - and there are lots of examples of both of those.  It's the 1937 and earlier aircraft octant box photos that I've had trouble finding examples of.