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I finally got my hands on a Fake Tamaya. Many of you have seen these. They're offered for sale at about $80 on eBay. They resemble real sextants more than the usual "shiny gold" dust-collector decorative items that have been sold on eBay and elsewhere for decades. The image below shows the specific example that I have acquired. I traded a spare Davis Mk 3 for this, strictly so that we could review it.

Here's my plan: I invite the group (that means you) to suggest concerns, properties that should be tested, features that should be checked, observations that should be tried. And I will report back with whatever I can discover. Please respect one feature of this conversation: do not reply here with "been there, done that... here's a definitive analysis" (similarly please do not reply with a link to somebody else's analysis). When this conversation winds down, we can always add other analyses. But for now, treat it as a "game" where we are trying to determine just how bad this design really is. You may count that as an a priori conclusion: it is bad.

Please refer to this type of sextant as Fake Tamaya or FakeTamaya or pseudo-Tamaya --something that never separates the brand being spoofed from a tag making clear that it is not a professional sextant. This should help reduce the damage done to the reputation of real sextants, and it may deflect misleading internet searches.

Frank Reed

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