NavList:

Kevin C, you wrote:
"a solution to a problem that ceased to exist"

And David Pike had proposed a similar idea. It's funny... I was digging around for terminology just last week for some of the biases of the "museum collecting process". Museums have a tendency to collect exotic, "priceless" objects, in part reflecting their legacy from private collections of "establishment wealth" and government "treasure troves". This is sometimes cited as the "fallacy of fine things". Old "stuff" in museums looks like it's finest craftsmanship and the best materials, and museum visitors can't help saying "gee, they made stuff so much better in the old days..." No, it's just that the junk broke. The low-quality examples were used until worn out and then thrown away!

Museums have another peculiar tendency; they collect items that are exotic because no one wanted them! Many "rare" items in museum collections, some quite finely crafted, ended up in the collection because they failed in the marketplace. A government-requisitioned instrument, like this AQU-1/A sextant could easily be similar. The entire stock produced might amount to a dozen instruments, never actually used in production aircraft, and shipped off to the nearest museum instead of the junkyard.

By the way, Kevin, thank you for that weight estimate. It sure looks heavy! You closed your message saying, "It will be interesting to see what appears in the window when I figure out how to put 24 volts to it." Hmm... Isn't that a line from a little book by Mary Shelley? 

Frank Reed