After selling one of my telescopes last year at an antiques fair (and making a very healthy profit on it, if I do say so myself!), I was able to splurge a bit on another ‘scope – of a particular style which I have, until now, not had the privilege of adding to my collection.

I’ve seen a number of these telescopes over the years, but they were all in absolutely terrible condition. Most of them were covered with dents, scratches, loose or broken lenses…and outrageous price-tags! I don’t know about you, but $650 for a telescope with no glass inside it sounds like a very steep price to pay for what is basically a very nice, polished metal tube covered in leather.

I got this particular ‘scope from my local flea-market and after checking it all over for flaws and damage, decided that it was worth the expense to buy it. It had one or two minor faults, all relating to the leather sheathing, but nothing that some restoration (eventually…if it ever needs it) couldn’t rectify. So, for much less than the nearly $700 that the other telescopes were going for, I decided to buy it.

What is an ‘Officer of the Watch’ Telescope?

With its long, thin profile and single draw-tube, sliding glare-shield and smooth, leather cladding, this telescope is quite different from a lot of the others that you’ll find out ‘in the wild’ as it were. Most antique telescopes that you’ll find out and about are multi-tube telescopes without any type of sliding glare-shield, and they’re usually much smaller, with a closed length of anywhere from four to six to eight inches; some slightly larger ones might be about twelve inches, but not many will be longer than that.

By comparison, an officer-of-the-watch telescope typically measures 18 inches when closed up, stretching out to about two feet when fully extended. Most other telescopes can double or triple their lengths easily when they’re extended, while this particular model does not. Exactly why it was designed this way will be explained later on.

These telescopes are called Officer-of-the-watch/officer-on-watch (‘OOW’) telescopes because they were usually purchased by officers or captains serving in the navy or the merchant marine for use on the ship’s bridge. Such telescopes were either the private property of the officers who carried them, or else were the property of the ship, and were kept on the bridge at all times for use by the crew. Their purpose was to provide a vision-aid close to hand for officers on the bridge in the event of an emergency.

Why are they shaped like they are?

As I said earlier, Officer-of-the-Watch telescopes are long and narrow, with single draw-tubes and sliding glare-shields over their objective lenses. Their unique shape is due to the constraints of their working environments. Since these telescopes were usually kept (and used in) the bridge of a ship at sea, they had to be compact. A shorter, two-foot telescope was lighter, easier to carry and easier to use in the confined space of a ship’s wheelhouse, compared to a more conventional naval telescope (some of which could be three or even four feet long!). Try swinging that around inside a wheelhouse without cracking the helmsman in the head! He won’t thank you for it!

How Old are these Telescopes?

Officer-of-the-watch telescopes date to the early 20th century and appear to have been made exclusively in Britain. They were manufactured starting ca. 1900 up to the middle of the century. and were originally manufactured for the Royal Navy, but their use drifted into regular merchant-marine use as well due to their practicality of design.

So, what is an Officer of the Watch?

In the ship’s crew, an officer of the watch (or ‘officer on watch’) is the officer in charge of watchkeeping. Every officer on the ship, generally from the captain down to the lowest-ranking officer, covers watchkeeping in shifts. Traditionally, a watch was four hours long. During that four-hour shift, an officer stood watch on the bridge. Here, he could oversee the ship’s navigation, the weather, the speed and direction of travel, and could respond swiftly to emergencies. The officer of the watch had to be good at navigation, reading the weather, and at assessing dangerous situations such as storms, reefs, rocks and other hazards. In the absence of the captain (who might be sleeping, working, having dinner or be otherwise engaged), the officer of the watch was in charge of the ship’s immediate handling and navigation.

Typically, the officer of the watch was joined by at least two other sailors – a forward lookout or two, and a junior seaman known as a quartermaster, whose job was usually that of controlling the ship’s direction by manning the helm or the ship’s wheel. Officer-of-the-Watch telescopes were usually mounted on the wheelhouse walls, secured in place by brackets or rings to stop them rolling or sliding around.

In the event of something posing a hazard or threat to the ship (such as an oncoming storm, a coastline, rocks, a lighthouse or other ships), the officer of the watch could use the telescope provided (or one which he himself had purchased) to assess the situation ahead.

Since it could be dangerous to leave the wheelhouse during rough or stormy weather, a slimmer, more compact telescope which could be used easily indoors was preferable to the much longer, thicker, and heavier telescopes usually used at sea. Once the hazard had been identified, the ship could take appropriate action, either changing course, or else ordering the ship to stop or slow down, usually done by operating the engine-order telegraphs on the bridge, to send or ‘ring’ orders down to the engine-room below (each telegraph was equipped with a bell that dinged with each movement of the telegraph-arm so that the engineer could hear the change in orders from the bridge, over the drone of the engines).

What Features do these Telescopes Have?

To begin with, one of the most noticeable features of these telescopes is how thin they are. Typically not more than about three inches wide (if that!). A useful feature, since it would make the telescope easy to grip and hold – even if it’s winter on the Atlantic, and you’re wearing gloves to stop frostbite, but you need to spot an iceberg right ahead!

Another useful feature is the leather, non-slip cladding on the barrel. This was partially done for style purposes, but it also makes the telescope easier to grip with wet, cold hands in an emergency.

The third most noticeable feature that you’ll find on every officer of the watch telescope is the sliding shield at the front. Variously called ‘dew shields’ and ‘glare shields’, their purpose was to keep rain, seawater, spray and sunlight off the main lens (known as the ‘objective lens’). By sliding the shield out ahead of the lens, it prevented the sun’s rays from reflecting off the glass and potentially blinding the user, and it also kept the glass clear of raindrops or sea-spray in heavy weather, and was a popular feature on maritime telescopes.

Are These Types of Telescopes Common?

They are fairly common, yes. I’ve seen about four or five before I eventually bought this one. Most of them were in terrible, unusable condition due to their age and the lives they led, but you can find working examples for not too much money, if you’re patient. They’re typically made of brass (which may or may not be nickel-plated. Mine is plated) and are typically 18 inches long, extending out to about 24 inches in open length. Living in Australia, a country which until the late 20th century was accessible only by ship, finding maritime antiques isn’t that difficult. Barometers, ship’s clocks, telescopes, binoculars and sextants are pretty common here.

If you’re thinking of buying an antique telescope, then you need to check for things like dents, cracks, scratches and warpage. Damaged lenses can be hard to replace, and so should be avoided. Dents on the barrel (but even moreso on the draw-tubes) should be avoided as much as possible. Dents will misshape the profile of the tube and make it harder to draw in and out of the telescope. Dents on the draw-tubes will cause the telescope to jam.

If you have the right tools and enough patience, you can press and roll out (or at least reduce) stubborn dents, but you should be careful not to warp the shape of the tube. I was able to use a heavy, wooden rolling pin to roll out the dent inside the glare-shield on one of my favourite telescopes with great success. It wasn’t entirely eliminated, but it was reduced significantly – enough that it was no longer causing the shield to jam every time I opened or closed it.

You should check that the sliding eyepiece shutter over the eyepiece lens is in good condition. If loose, they can be tightened by screwing them back into place. If they’re too tight, loosen the screw slightly. If the screw works itself loose repeatedly after tightening, every time you open and close the shutter, then a DROP of oil on the shutter will provide enough lubrication to allow the shutter to slide open and shut, without the friction that would also loosen the screw.

Simply tighten the screw as much as possible, apply a dab of oil and work it in. I’ve had to do that with a couple of telescopes in the past and provided the oil doesn’t dry out completely (unlikely), then it’s a very effective little fix.

Last but not least, you should check the telescope for its lens cap. Not all telescopes were designed to have lens-caps, but most did. This one does not have a cap over the objective lens, and never did. Instead it has a leather hood that drops over it, but most telescopes are meant to have them, to protect the objective lens from dust, water and damage. That said, it’s rather common to buy antique telescopes without their lens-caps included.

Anyway, that wraps up my posting about my rather different and interesting addition to my collection. For more information about antique telescopes, I can strongly recommend the blog of Nicholas Denbow, at The Telescope Collector. His posts are both entertaining, informative and fun to read!

If you’re like me, and have had to grow up with appalling eyesight, then you’ll know that you can never have too many magnifying glasses. Ever since the day I started highschool, I’ve always wanted a pocket magnifying glass. Something which I could carry around with me and use whenever I needed to read small text, or magnify something which I couldn’t see clearly.

These days, there’s all kinds of magnifiers available. They come with lights, folding lenses and protective cases, they’re downloadable apps on your phone which you can customise to your needs, they have sensors and zoom-functions and all the rest of it.

And almost all of them are made of some cheap plastic stuff, usually in garish colours and god-awful patterns, and with weird, whacky designs that make them look more like toys than anything else. And this is the main reason why I have never bought one.

Instead, for many years, I held out, hoping to find something a little nicer, a little more refined and elegant, something useful that didn’t look like just another mass-produced vision-aid. Deciding to take a page from the book of history, I started hunting for a quizzing-glass.

What’s a Quizzing Glass?

“A what?”, I hear you say.

A quizzing-glass, I repeat, a quizzing-glass.

Alright…and what is a ‘quizzing-glass’?

I am so glad you asked, because this post is going to be all about them!

First, a bit of background – struggling with a heady mix of myopia and astigmatism (the eyes’ inability to both focus, and stabilise an image) – my eyesight has always been awful. Don’t get me wrong, I can see well enough to do just about anything – with enough time, patience and swearing, I can thread a needle if I really have to – but because of my conflicting vision-conditions, I’ve always suffered from terrible nearsightedness – hence the need for a decent magnifying glass.

To this end, I’d spent a long time – at least 10 years – searching for a decent quizzing-glass to use as a magnifier. Unfortunately, quizzing-glasses are both rare, and expensive. Despite visiting countless fairs, shops, and dealers, I’d never been able to find one, or afford one, or buy one which I liked enough to spend money on – when a glass costs upwards of $600 retail, you want it to be the best possible…and even then, I didn’t have $600 to blow, being a poor university student at the time.

Anyway, enough backstory – what is a quizzing-glass??

Quizzing-glasses, or ‘quizzers’ as they’re also called, are small, pocket-sized handheld magnifying glasses with single lenses. The lenses are about the size of a large coin, and the frames and rims are typically made from gold, silver, or Pinchbeck-Brass (more about that later). Quizzers typically came with a handle or ring under the frame to hold in the hand or fingers, and the same handle or frame also served as an anchoring point for a chain, ribbon or cord, that affixed to the user’s clothing or went around the neck, to prevent damage or loss during the course of a day’s usage.

Quizzing-glasses were very common in the 1700s and 1800s. At a time when eyesight conditions were typically corrected with crude lenses and eyepieces such as Nurnberg spectacles and handheld lorgnettes, high society was looking for something more elegant and refined.

Quizzing-glasses were a lot more than just eyepieces to help you read stuff, in the 1700s, they were also flashy fashion-accessories! It was very common for a man – or even a woman – of means, to sport a quizzer as a fashion-accessory, even if they didn’t even need one! Peering at something through a quizzer became an upperclass affectation – one might, or might not, be genuinely interested in whatever they were looking at – but if they did look at it, then it was usually through the lens of a quizzer! In the later 19th century and even into the 20th century, this action was usually replaced by the more well-known monocle (yes, there is a difference, I’ll talk about that later, too!).

For gentlemen in the late 1700s and early 1800s, stereotypical accessories were the walking-stick and tricorne hat. For ladies, a parasol and fan were the most common accessories – but both sexes carried, and used quizzing-glasses.

Why Use a Quizzing-Glass?

I suspect the main reason why they were so popular is partially because they were cheaper. Spectacles – even relatively simple ones, needed so much work done to them – two identical lenses, two rims, screws, springs, a bridge, nosepads…and if you wanted them, then also temple-arms – and if you did want them, then that meant adding hinges, more screws, finials, and maybe even a protective case to go with it…it’s getting expensive now, isn’t it?

On the other hand, if you weren’t the type who desperately needed or used spectacles every day, and instead only did a casual amount of reading or close-work, then a quizzer, with its simpler construction, fewer parts, and smaller size, was generally considered to be a better, and cheaper, selection!

What’s the Difference Between a Quizzer and a Monocle?

Ever since I started carrying and using my quizzers (which is on a daily basis, thanks to my aforementioned eye-condition), I get people who come up to me and say ‘Oh wow! A monocle, I didn’t know anybody used those anymore…‘.

I grin, and smile and nod…and do my best not to correct their misinformation – because – it’s not a monocle!

Alright, so what’s the difference, then?

A quizzing-glass and a monocle both have a single lens fitted into a frame or rim. Both lenses serve as magnifiers, or otherwise help to correct vision.

That is where the similarities END.

A quizzing-glass is a handheld device – the frame is held by the ring or handle up to the eye, like a magnifying glass, and is attached to the user’s clothing by a chain, cord or strap of some variety. When not in use, it sits in the pocket of the user’s coat or jacket or waistcoat, or hangs on a cord or ribbon around the neck, usually resting at chest-level.

On top of that, a quizzing-glass lens can be almost any shape – round, oval, hexagonal, octagonal…even square! Since it doesn’t have to fit into the user’s eye-socket, the shape or even the size of the lens and the frame around it really doesn’t matter. By comparison, a monocle’s lens is always a perfect circle – it has to be, in order to fit into the user’s eye-socket, which is how a monocle is worn.

Monocles fit into the user’s eye-socket through friction. You pop it in, and the friction of your eyebrow resting and pressing against the top of the monocle holds it against your cheekbone, keeping the monocle in place. In cheaper monocles, which are just plain glass, the edge of the lens is smoothed off to make it more comfortable to wear.

On more expensive monocles, which come with frames and rims, seating the monocle in the eye-socket is done with the aid of two protruding shelves or ledges affixed to the edge of the frame, called ‘galleries’. A monocle has two galleries – one for the top of your eye-socket, and one for the bottom. You raise your eyebrow, pop in your monocle and then relax your facial muscles. The tension of your eye-socket pressing or resting against the monocle-galleries should be enough – if the monocle is sized and fitted correctly – to hold it in place.

The End of the Quizzing Glass

While monocles and quizzing-glasses were, for a time, equally popular, quizzing glasses died out in the 1800s, and by the turn of the 20th century, were a complete anachronism. Their demise is due chiefly to the fact that they were a fashion accessory, rather than being an actual vision-correction device, such as a monocle is designed to be. As fashions changed to be less frivolous and flamboyant to more straitlaced and tidy, people with eyesight problems chose to use lorgnettes or even modern-style temple-glasses to correct their eyesight, rather than fiddling around with a quizzing-glass. Monocles and modern spectacles had the advantage that while worn, they could leave both hands free to work.

By comparison to the demise of the quizzing-glass, the monocle remains in use today. Although it’s largely seen as a quaint holdover from the Edwardian era, the stereotypical eyepiece of well-bred, public-school-educated upper-class men, you can still buy – and even have prescribed for you – monocles which are brand-new. Most wearers are people who have poor vision in just one eye, and for whom a pair of spectacles isn’t strictly necessary.

I want to Buy a Quizzing Glass!

Quizzing glasses can be hard to find. After all, they haven’t been manufactured in the best part of nearly 200 years! They’re typically made of silver, gold, or pinchbeck (a type of really shiny brass). They were most common from the early 1700s up to the mid-1800s (when various types of spectacles and monocles replaced them in popularity). So, if you want to buy one, what do you need to look out for?

First thing’s first – you need to check the lens. The lens should be clean, clear and without cracks, scratches or chips. Test it for magnification power and see if you’re comfortable with the strength provided. Unless you have the facilities, contacts or the money to pay for someone to grind you a new magnifying lens, discard any quizzers with overly-scratched/chipped lenses.

Next thing to check is the condition of the frame or rim. In general, these should be alright, but you can find some (as I certainly have, in the past) which were bent or damaged. This can cause the lens to sit improperly, or even fall out, so rivets, screws and the edges of frames should all be checked for integrity. While you’re at it, examine any holding-loops or handles for issues like dents, cracks, warping or bending, and loose fitting parts. Just keep in mind that some holding-loops are meant to pivot and swing around, so don’t worry if they swivel back and forth.

How Much do Quizzing Glasses Cost?

Due to their rarity, quizzers are fairly expensive. Although some historical reenactment companies do manufacture modern quizzers in antique style, to purchase an actual Georgian-era quizzer will set you back quite a bit, anywhere from $100 – $300 for a silver one in variable condition (which is not too bad a price to pay) up to $400 – $600+ for one in solid gold. And that’s provided you don’t have to pay for the lens to be replaced, or for the frame to be repaired.

Quizzers were typically attached to the body of the wearer using a silk ribbon or lanyard. Since I wear mine in my upper waistcoat-pockets, I use simple pocketwatch chains (which is an option, if you choose to wear them that way). To stop them from swinging around and damaging the glass, keep your quizzer tucked out of the way (under your shirt or in your jacket pocket) when not using it.