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In the 1920s, the two Plath companies were competing with English (&
French, Dutch, U.S., & others?) companies.  By 1970, almost all those
manufacturers were out of business, which may have increased the Plath
market share.  There's the Japanese component too, but I don't know
what their role was.

On Jan 18, 2004, at 5:52 AM, Kieran Kelly wrote:

> Joel Jacobs wrote:
>
> "My company, Nautech, was selling 900 sextants a year, mostly in the
> U.S.,
> in the 1970's so your production figures for Plath should be low."
>
> I suggested 400 a year in 1920. I could believe that with increasing
> automation and the fact that less of the sextants were done by hand in
> 1970
> that they got very high production runs. Do you think my guess for
> about 400
> hand made sextants in 1920 is still adrift? That's only a bit more
> than 1
> per day so I agree it does sound light on.
>
> However, Joao Blasques wrote that he had a "Plath three circle sextant,
> serial number 6326 that was tested in the factory on September, 15,
> 1912"
>
> If that is the case and they were up to 10,500 by the end of 1925 then
> they
> were making 321 per year even less than I suggested, admittedly World
> War 1
> intervened which may have slowed production considerably.

   

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