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?

Used to carry one along with a hand level, plumb bob and the old tac ball, and a two pounder.

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...52ceaf0b2e.jpg

Freaky!:) we never use these anymore. But I have one just in case. Heck. I think I have four.

It looks like a dikfer to me.

Haha. Great joke.

This is all I have left of the survey years, except sore knees. Can't even find a plumb bob.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1426021957.jpg

a set up in Alaska
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1426022152.jpg

and one in Colorado, I think this was at 13,400 something feet.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1426023013.jpg

Dumb question, but why can't you just turn your head?
Hiding from German troops with mustard gas in those orthogonal trenches?

Want one?

want one what, that's a picture of a T-2 in Alaska. I was wrapping angles and shooting distances for miles up there. Things got a lot easier with GPS. Everyting had to have earth's curvature calced in with that and the HP EDM.
A helicopter would drop me off there, once we scared a bear and he left a steamy pile right by the control point.

you can turn your head but this thing can make you look left and right at the same time... that would be painful if you tried it by just turning your head... :) (dual prism, one will give an image of the left side, the other of the right side)

Very useful for setting out lines and 90 degree angles.
They are kinda obsolete now but still have there uses here and there.

Looks like you got to visit some pretty cool places at least. You might have been the only person to have ever been at some of them.

Sometimes I would think that but then come across a falling down shack next to a small mine in the middle of nowhere. I think every square foot of land in South East Alaska has been walked on.
As for set up points like these, someone had hiked up to them in the 30s and triangulated them. In Alaska I always flew in by helicopter. Sometimes the thing just hovered and I off loaded, same with leaving, it came in, hovered against the side of the cliff and I on loaded.

Is it heavy? Then it's expensive, so don't touch it!