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Joel,

it could be that the Navies,
including Kriegsmarine, had some numbers of
their own stamped on sextants in addition to the
manufacturer numbers. I remember some pictures
where some very different number
was stamped on the arm (and the manufacturer number on the arc).
Probably these were British sextants, but I did not save
the pictures, and do not remember the brands.

A nice collection of Russian sextants (all models that I know)
can be seen in:
http://www.maurnavy.com/index.html

My Russian SNO-T
has no numbers stamped or engrved
on the arc or on the arm, but instead a little plate
of white metal screwed on the back (against the index mirror,
on the back side of the sextant) which says
1990 yr. N 90501  1.5 kg Made in USSR (all in Russian)
and an identical plate on the box. The "certificate" says
that 90501 is the "manufacturers number".
Some numbers: 215 and 136-1 are also stamped on the back side
of the frame.

Now I finally found out what SNO-T means:-)
"Sextan Navigacionnyi s Osvetitelem - Tropikoustoichivyi".
that is:
Sextant for Navigation with Illumination - Tropic resistant.

And one more little remark: I favor SNO-T transliteration
because this is how the letters SOUND.
("CHO" is how they LOOK. This second way of transliteration
cannot be used systematically because there are several letters
in Cyrillic which do not resemble anything in Latin alphabet).
For example, on Soviet submarine sextants you frequently see
the letter on the arm which sounds like "Shch", and cannot
be typed on a Latin keyboard.
(Enlarge 5-th picture from the top on the web site I
mentioned to see it).

Alex.

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004, Yourname Here wrote:

> I'm not certain, but I don't think it was a practice of
> C.. Plath to have a number on the index arm for their
> commerical sextants. The Russian SNO-T has a number on the
> index arm that will match the number on a plate on the
> case if its OEM stock. The SNO-T doesn't have a number on the frame.
> I use the term SNO-T because that is how the
> identifying plate is engraved.

> You say you know of many sextants with a serial number
> on the index arm.
> Can you tell me which brands of sextants these are.

   

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