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Hello everyone,

I spend the last few days on vacation in St. Augustine, Florida, where I had the opportunity to visit the St. Augustine lighthouse, and the museum based in the same location.

One part of the museum is dedicated to the World War II period, when the US Navy took over and used it as a training facility. There are also a lot of stories about the US ships sunken by the German U-Boats in front of the central Florida coast.

In that area, they have in exhibition a C. Plath sextant built in 1938, which was the model used by the U-Boats. The serial number is 15602.

On the other hand, as part of my own collection, I have a C. Plath sextant in perfect working condition, that was built after World War II in 1952. The serial number is 31698.

I understand that after World War II the C. Plath factory was taken over by the Russian Army and did not produce much for the next few years.

Based on the serial numbers difference, it looks like around 15,000 sextants were made during the war years.

As you can see in pictures below, both models are pretty much the same, except for the horizon mirror that in the older model is square in the “newer” model is round.

The first three pictures are of the 1938 model, and the last two of the 1952 model.

Regards,

Martin Caminos

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