Anybody know what this IS?

Does anybody know what this is or what it belongs to? I found it in my grandfather's military trunk with the rest of his goodies he's brought back from all over the place. It seems to be a sight of some kind? If you look through it, it has cross hairs and numbers for elevation and deflection. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

 

Not sure but it's reminiscent of part of the sight for an MG34/42 when in 'Schwere' tripod-mounted mode, that looks like a Zeiss trademark... but rather crude. (did he ever visit Russia?)There is a British marque that used a similar logo, can't remember which for the life of me though...

This chap has page after page of German Military optics pictured, might be worth a trawl through?
Cheers,
Adam

 

It's not Russian, there is no X or N in the Russian alphabet.

 

Von Poop is right - that looks very like a Carl Zeiss trademark but it appears slightly 'wrong'...also 'txn' has the appearance of a Germann WWII manufacturer code - but I can't find it....

 

The top letters look lyke Cyrillic - 'Te Pe Kah', but on the lower row there is no Cyrillic 'N', so the mistery remains.

 

In the now-deleted thread, I suggested that the top row of characters were Cyrillic.

The character "X" most definitely is used in the Cyrillic alphabet and the Russian language, as is the character "H". However both these characters have different meanings from their usage in the English language. A quick scan of the front page of the Russian Pravda newspaper will quickly show the existence of "X"!

Although the character "N" isn't in the Cyrillic alphabet, it can often be found on Russian-made equipment to indicate a serial number.

For examples, have a look at this camera lens on eBay, or the collection of Russian cameras, several of which which use "No." as a prefix to the serial numbers.

I therefore stand by my suggestion that the optic is probably of Russian manufacture.

Forrest

 

Stand corrected Forrest

A sketch of the cross-hairs inside might be useful...

 

Some 30 years ago I used to have a Soviet 35mm SLR Zenit camera, with a 250mm lens. I was very happy with it, my only gripe was the lens was screw-in instead of bayonet, so changing lenses was a chore.

It didn't have a buil-in photometer, I had to use a manual one, we were far removed from the current point-and-clicks of today! And almost all my photography then was BW.

 

Ahhh.. the joy of Krasnogorsk!
Imagine waving one of these around at an airport now:

see what you mean though Za, could just as easily be a right angle attachment for a camera.
I still reckon there's something eastern block about it. Many of the surviving German optical plants were immediately adapted to soviet use, often using the same names and trademarks as quality fell, hence my suspicion at that zeiss-like marking. Immediate post war photo gear can have a strange mix of cyrillic and roman characters.
Could it be TxN (as in T by N)?
Cheers,
Adam

 

Still guessing here - but could this have been made by Carl Zeiss Jena post-war ? Zeiss was split in two after WWII ( Jena in East- and Umbral in West-Germany ) and both companies became locked in a bitter dispute over the right to use the original Zeiss 'lens' trademark.....

 

Who knows? But anyway the Zeiss-Jena products were still marked in latin alphabet.

I'd still like to take a look at the reticle to be sure of what it is.