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Noel Wilson wrote of a C1900 Artificial Horizon on eBay:

This seller writes of having just received a batch 10,000 such items. ANTIQUE ARTIFICIAL HORIZON - C 1900 - NICE WOODEN CASE - SEE APPRAISAL DETAILS | eBay . The example of a pendulous AH attachment for a marine sextant advertised on the top of the eBay page indicates that the mercury AH isn’t just a single item ANTIQUE ARTIFICIAL HORIZON - C. 1900 - WHYTE THOMPSON & CO. - SEE APPRAISAL | eBay . Even if he has 100 and not 10,000 items to sell, it’s still very worrying.  I’m sure I came across a description of the pendulous marine A/H when I was researching a talk on aircraft sextants four or five years back.  Both items look very much part of British maritime history, and one wonders how they got into a large batch directed to the USA.  Either someone with a massive collection died and his family were unaware of the collection’s significance, or a Government facility closed or was being closed down, and all the technical people moved out assuming someone else would make arrangements about the stored historical equipment.  Then the philistines moved in and sent it to a Government surplus auction to be sold in packing cases with lots of 1000 WW1 rifle straps and 500 tin mugs.  DaveP