Binoculars Prismatic No.2 Mk.2 - Advice

[Micheal Doyne]

So, I may have got over excited on that auction site and bought a pair of allegedly working no.2 mk2 with graticule. Sellers claims optics are a tad milky and there is evidently a some matter on the graticule, but they where £29.99.

Does any one service these, and if so is what I’m describing fixed by a quick optical polish, or have I just bought my self some expensive desk furniture?

Additionally no case + no purge points (odd?)

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[Micheal Doyne]

Photos

[Flying10uk]

Are they collimated, as in do you see double vision? The optics don't look that bad for £29.99. You could carefully clean the outer surfaces of the lenses that you can see with lens tissues, available from camera shops, or were the last time I tried some years ago.

I recently picked up a pair of similar sized Bausch and Lomb 6x30 binos and paid £10 at a militaria fair. The overall condition wasn't as good as your pair but the Bausch and Lomb 6X30 seems less common on the UK collector's market than other makes of this size.

[Peter Laidler]

They look very nice for Mk2's. There is a short article about the various binos on this forum if you look hard or if someone can point to it. The Mk2's didn't have desiccation screws or stop-down ocular lenses. They were still floating around in service until 2008 or so along with the big No5 7x 50's

The reticles are glass plate etched (solid wire = graticle, plate etched = reticles) and so fine that you can barely see them with the naked eye, and what you see on the field lens is a x18 image of them. So the bits of coal you see in the image is really the finest particles of almost invisible dust you could ever imagine.

I keep a cheapo pair in my day-sack all the time. When I was on holiday in Oz a couple of years ago, on a boat on the Brisbane river, an Ozzie bloke opposite me said '....nice No2 binos, where'd you steal 'em from?'. Then he told me that he had a set of ex pommy ones that he'd 'liberated' in Vietnam. He'd gone there to liberate the Country but liberated a pair of No2's instead

[Gil Boyd]

This may help:

https://www.milsurps.com/content.php...No4-or-L42-CES

[Micheal Doyne]

So they have arrived, and to be honest I am really rather happy with them. However in an ideal world they could be a little clearer, there appears to a some internal dust. But other wise they would appear to be the best binoculars I have to date owned for lack of eye strain and double vision.
I appreciate from Peter’s comments on another threat that these are not simple to service, and if one where too finding some one experienced is imperative. So would any one know a uk based person who is still servicing these?

[bigduke6]

Got an old pair with now as I type, used them yesterday at the Longues-Sur-Mer Battery........ Gil you will be glad to know its a preserved site

[Gil Boyd]

Geoff,
Good to hear, probably because the gun is in tact, albeit deactivated!!

[bigduke6]

Gil, I checked one over and it needed a few bits.... but the barrel is all there, even got the numbers of each Gun, apart from the first one, although it suffered some damage that was down to us..... when we occupied it, not a direct hit as some say........

The battery crew (200 aged between 40-45) surrendered on the 7th, To the lads of the 2nd Battalion the "Devonshires" I'll post a lot of pics when I get home of the casemates etc, it was quite moving looking out of the observation bunker and I guess there ar** holes were going 50-20.

[Flying10uk]

Is the gun of French origin or is it German, do you know, please?