Howdy y'all!
Dad found this in a charity shop earlier today for 95p!
As you can see, it's a little pocket telescope, made of brass. The green gunk on it appears to be glue - we think it had leather around it originally. It's a really lovely little telescope, nothing "serious", but would be suitable for having in your pocket on a hillwalk to take a slightly closer look at wildlife, or similar. Alternatively, it could perhaps also be a monocular equivilent to opera glasses. Either way, as you can see, it was made by a "Lennie" in Edinburgh. There was a family-run Opticians business in Edinburgh from 1840 to 1921 called Lennie, and I assume they are the same.
Can anyone give me an approximate date or value, perhaps? I've seen a couple Lennie expanding telescopes, all of which had the name engraved in a script rather than print, which makes me think this is a later one. I don't think he has any intention of selling it, but he's been remarkably lucky with getting bargains on cameras recently so I'm curious about whether that's extended to telescopes too Interestingly, one of the ones I've seen had a wooden exterior - the knurling and details all looked comparable.
Any thoughts?
Cheers!
Pete
Dad found this in a charity shop earlier today for 95p!
As you can see, it's a little pocket telescope, made of brass. The green gunk on it appears to be glue - we think it had leather around it originally. It's a really lovely little telescope, nothing "serious", but would be suitable for having in your pocket on a hillwalk to take a slightly closer look at wildlife, or similar. Alternatively, it could perhaps also be a monocular equivilent to opera glasses. Either way, as you can see, it was made by a "Lennie" in Edinburgh. There was a family-run Opticians business in Edinburgh from 1840 to 1921 called Lennie, and I assume they are the same.
Can anyone give me an approximate date or value, perhaps? I've seen a couple Lennie expanding telescopes, all of which had the name engraved in a script rather than print, which makes me think this is a later one. I don't think he has any intention of selling it, but he's been remarkably lucky with getting bargains on cameras recently so I'm curious about whether that's extended to telescopes too Interestingly, one of the ones I've seen had a wooden exterior - the knurling and details all looked comparable.
Any thoughts?
Cheers!
Pete