Authoritative Book on Early German Optics

[Büchsemann]

Gentlemen,

At the moment I wouldn't know how the rest of you have done in this regard but thus far every time I decide to go digging for information on early German optics, in particular dates of manufacture and identification info on rifle scopes, I run into a lot of walls, bits and pieces or misinformation. With this I ask if any of you know of an authoritative book on the subject? Of course the subject of optics in general would include cameras and microscopes to rifle scopes and binoculars but I personally wouldn't mind sifting through it all if it helped me in filling in the many blanks that I currently have in my records. Pushing the wish thing a bit, is there a book on early German rifle scopes that is anywhere near as good on the subject as Dixon's European Sporting Cartridges book is to the cartridge collector?

Regards,

Mark

[chapmen]

Existing is an book about early zeiss binoculars.
Also there is Stroebels "old rifle scopes", but the german part is full of mistakes.
There is no book about older and early german or austrian (kahles) riflescopes.

[chapmen]

double post.......

[Büchsemann]

Chapmen,

Thank you for your reply. With your reply, the prior silence and all the digging around that I've been doing I have unfortunately had to come to the same conclusion; no such book exists. As to Nick Stroebel's "Old Rifle Scopes" book, I agree, it's not a good choice if one is interested in German scopes. It does appear though that there are a few books on German snipers from WW1 to WW2 that, besides good pictures, make reference to many sporting scopes that are linked to specific dates ... at least to the year and sometimes month that they were mounted on military weapons. The actual date of the scope's manufacture isn't there of course but hey, at least one can get somewhat of an idea as to when some scopes showed up on the market.

Regards,

Mark

[chapmen]

to get manufacture date by serial number is not possible. Archives ore eval are not existing form firms like Voigtländer, Busch , Ajack, Gerard or so on.
The only firm with an archive is Zeiss, but big parts of this archives are not worked over and no one has gone through it on the search for datas about serial number = manufacture dates.
Existing from Zeiss are only production quantitys for some pre 1945 years.
The books about sniping scopes have to be used with high attention if they tell manufacture dates.

[chapmen]

double.......