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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Trench periscope adams and co 1916


kmad

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Hi all

Just dug the below item out of attic

A car boot item from a long time ago, cost just a few euro

Question is it what it claim to be

Very poorly made with just light ply and pine construction

Metal covers over the mirrors are very basic and light in construction

Blackened inside the light chamber

Mirrors are of a very heavy glass approx 7 mm thick

Label is as you can see quiet distressed

Thanks for any comments In advance

Ken

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post-7840-0-95254400-1426534875_thumb.jp

post-7840-0-97029600-1426534897_thumb.jp

post-7840-0-59244400-1426534942_thumb.jp

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Thanks for positive response, good to know, as it does not have much astthetics are these a rare enough item

Cheers

K

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Thanks for positive response, good to know, as it does not have much astthetics are these a rare enough item

Cheers

K

There are a fair few No. 9s around, although 1916 is an early one.

Against it, many of the later 1917/ 1918 ones I've seen are complete with their hessian carrying satchel, spare mirrors and 'trench spike' for driving into parapet walls for support.

Still not a bad thing though. Value? £120-ish would be my guesstimate.

Cheers,

GT.

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Nice periscope, especially for a boot sale find! Looks 100%.

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A very large number of these have come from Australia. About 1980 the Australian Government sold over two cubic metres of these at dispersal auction of old war reserves material. They were bought by a gun and militaria shop in North Sydney called "The Armoury". The owner had links in the UK and a quantity were sent to the UK.

They sat in the shop as a great pile for years. The shop moved to York Street and latter to Clarence. By about 1986 they were all gone.

Originally all had the carry bag, with two spare mirrors in one end wrapped in paper. Most of the periscopes were 17 and 18 dated. A lot had damage to the makers label making the date hard to read.

They are still much more common here in Oz than the UK. and generally sell for much less here than UK.

Cheers

Ross

PS Australian war reserves are now getting pretty thin on WW1 kit. As a reservist in the 70s, we only ever were issued WW2 field and shell dressings. Occasionally we were issued WW1 dated field dressings. P1908 water bottle carriers and shoulder straps were still being used as carriers for some of our signals kit. In the 90s a quantity of German WW1 field medical kits in the leather belt pouch came through the dispersal system. These still had all the small glass bottles of medicine in them - of course all the solutions had dried out. Still do not know why we were holding these in War Reserve 80 years after the war but I was able to add a couple to the collection.

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  • 8 years later...

has anyone ever seen one of these in a battle ship grey colour 

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no

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It’s this colour do you think they fake these …there is no Brad arrow I will post a better pic 

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D8C7CC0D-1332-4D47-B98D-8A862E12DCE7.jpeg

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That looks good to me

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I know little about them but it looks good. 
There is a slight difference between the one shown originally and the grey one. On the panel with the label on there are two ‘lugs’ rebated into the side walls(can’t think of a better description) which differ. This could be that more than one manufacturer produced them on behalf of Adams & Co. 
The catch looks the same both in shape and fixing method. 
Can’t think why it would be grey but my completely uneducated guess is it’s real.

Simon

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Thank you I appreciate your feed back 

have a good evening 

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I think the "grey" is actually an Australian Army 1960s khaki drab paint, post WW2. Most surviving examples of these were sold out of Australian War Reserve about 1980. Some had been repainted by Army workshops a number of years earlier. OK I prefer to have an item in the original WW1 paint, But repainted by the Army whilst still in Army service, does not seriously impact authenticity. 

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Thank you so you ever so much for the info 

That would make sense as I can see a painted broad arrow I guess it’s been covered by grey 

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