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On May 5, 2008, at 12:00 AM, Robert Eno wrote:

>
> Fred wrote:
>
>> Robert may have had a slightly prejudiced view about manufacturers of
>> new sextants as he failed to mention the Freiberger, from the former
>> East Germany (or maybe they've gone out of business?).
>
> Robert responds:
>
> Yes and no. I actually forgot to mention Frieberger, which is odd,
> seeing as
> how I owned one 20 years ago, but Fred is correct about my
> prejudiced view.
> I am not a big fan of Frieberger. The optics are great, but the
> metal works
> leave a lot to be desired.
>
> Fred wrote:
>
> These are  excellent pieces of equipment and not too expensive.  I
> suspect
> they
>> have better construction all around than Cassens & Plath.
>
> Robert responds:
>
> Here I have to strongly disagree with Fred. The Cassens and Plath
> is far
> superior to the Frieberger in every aspect. There is just no way that
> Frieberger comes even close to Cassens and Plath in terms of
> quality of
> construction. In fact, Cassens and Plath is considered by many
> experienced
> navigators to be of equal quality to the famous and now defunct,
> C.Plath.
> According to one instrument repairman that I knew (who has since
> crossed the
> bar), Cassens and Plath is superior to C.Plath because it lends itself
> better to repairs.

Fred Responds:

Yes, the enclosed gear of the Frieberger makes it harder to work on,
but the aluminum frame is light.  Personally, I have no experience
with the Frieberger.  As far as I can tell from Alex Estremko's
experience with the SNO-T, almost the same design, the accuracy is
top knotch.

My comments on the C+P were based on the shades being glued into
their holders rather than retained with a ring, on buying a C+P 6x30
telescope that was not centered on the optical axis, and on the
holder in the case breaking so that the sextant could rattle around
in the case.

While I do not discount entirely the personal opinions of navigators,
their prejudices would be incorporated into their opinions: if you
prefer either German, Japanese, British or Chinese things for
whatever reason, you'll probably think that an instrument from that
country is superior. And you probably would get better results from
the instrument you preferred.


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