What is this?
 

Found this in a old desk drawer

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...f45a0f122c.jpghttp://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...24e480d072.jpghttp://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...77d99733bd.jpghttp://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...65644cd463.jpg

no moving parts.

nothing twists or moves. perplexing.

Looks like maybe an old corporate seal

I'm thinking some sort of balance or active counter weight for either a telescope, camera rig, or surveying equipment.

I was going to guess part of an old company seal or notary stamp also. The leather pad looks well used. Most corporation seals I have seen usually have a positive (raised) and a negative (embossed)side to emboss the paper with the seal (kind of like a pair of pliers.)

Nothing on the googles using Chicago and Japan together...

Remove that screw.

Nuclear detonator. Be. Very. Careful.

What's it smell like. Could be an old sex toy. :D

Looks like it should come apart to me.

It's a topographic mirror/prism. Used for setting out points by surveyors.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1425929200.jpg

Those are actually pretty cool gadgets. If you look into it, it makes you look 90 degrees left and right by using prisms.

(I'm a topographic surveyor by degree.)

Gah. It was stuck! I twisted it open.

Thanks G. !!!

we called them right angle prisms, I still have one in a scabbard like that. and other usless things like a plumb bob

That is NOT a toy!

Soon to be made obsolete by the new Apple i-prism wearable version...

.

been obsolete since GPS came into the survey realm. that one would have cost about $25 bucks and the other one in the pictures was about $35 when I bought it.
But of course they don't wear out.

oh, you are too funny!! i found a plumb-bob in the same desk drawer right next to this thing. hahah.

Yeah, you hang the bob from the hook on the bottom and you can get very close to on line with something to your right and left, plus other uses. The were pretty handy in the day.

Some things never change with technology, but some sure do. Today I received a new catalog in the mail with all sorts of very high end GPS surveying equipment but right up front was a machete. That part will never change. There will always be brush and weeds to hack through.

real men hang doors with a plumb bob. :D what are you talking about?