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I've bought only one sextant on eBay. It was a Kollsman periscopic
bubble sextant. The price was rather high (about $100), but the sextant
was in excellent condition in every respect. The seller even included a
photocopy of the manual.

The only way to be sure about the bubble is to walk the seller through
the process of forming the bubble. Ask if the averager works too.

Be careful about batteries -- my A-12 sextant is not usable at night
because modern C cells don't fit the bubble light assembly. I guess
1940s cells were slightly smaller in diameter. I remember one of the
guys on this list saying he had a friend modify his A-12 with a lathe to
fix that problem.

AN5851 sextants are common on eBay. I almost bought one a few years ago.
The seller checked the bubble and averager for me, and verified the
radioactive paint (to illuminate the bubble at night) was still in good
condition. The deal never went through, though. I can't remember the
reason. I still want to get one of those someday.

The AN5851s have electric illumination for reading the altitude scales,
but somewhere I read that a small red flashlight is less bother than
connecting the battery power pack and cable, so it's not a big deal if
those pieces are missing.

A few years ago I reported my results with the A-12 and Kollsman:
http://www.i-DEADLINK-com/lists/navigation/0301/0001.html

My online bubble sextant manual may help:
http://home.earthlink.net/~s543t-24dst/airnav/index.html

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