1952 T-2, mils. Lucky find. It??s near perfect.?ÿ
It has an optical plummet. Doesn??t use tribrach.?ÿ
So, what do you suppose MOD-X is?
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MOD could be "model", or if it is english maybe "Ministry of Defence"
Engineer's Model X ?????
could be: engineers model 10 ?ÿ
I??ve seen some (army surplus) that list a modification by a complicated long number.?ÿ
It??s straight up identical to my 1969 Mils T2.
Oh well, it returns the same angle as new guns. 70 yrs old and only midlife ?ÿ
It doesn??t have a tribrach, but it can be lifted out of the base plate allowing a GDF2 to be dropped in. So it??s compatible with tribrachs.?ÿ
The 0.002 mill theodolite is indeed A T2, as you already identified.?ÿ ?¨Not sure what the ??ENG. MOD.-X?? means? My guess would be the same as Kevin??s. ?ÿI was an MOS 82C (Field Artillery Surveyor), but there were some other engineering surveyor MOS??s.?ÿ I don??t know If their instruments were any different. Maybe the extra lens was added to make the scope image upright instead of inverted? There were some military variations of the reticle for solar/celestial observations etc., albeit I thought that was only in some of the later models? Frankly you never can tell with military hardware, and what-all procurement contracts there may have been. ?ÿYour instrument looks too ??clean?? to have seen frequent use.?ÿ Nice score!
Most likely MODel X - it is not Ministry of Defence - we have an ex-MOD one and that is engraved on the lower body. The lettering on the 1952 one looks to have been engraved in the Wild factory, so it is probably an official designation.
Our one is still in occasional use - being non-automatic it can be used on unstable surfaces, such as a ship deck. Once set up parallel to the deck we lock off the vertical bubble adjustment knob and then all readings are relative to the ships axis - used when monitoring deflections as a delicate cargo is being loaded.
We had the adaptor on top fitted when we acquired it in the early '80s, so as to take a Geodimeter 120
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@chris-mills That??s gorgeous.
I like manual indexing and inverted. And Mils is the way to go. Not fit layout of course. I do a lot a solar obs. Cannot be beat. And against a T-3 you can??t tell the the difference.?ÿ
@cv This one is inverted, no solar diameter reticule, does have stadia hairs.
Old style cross hairs. It doesn??t have the small + at center.
Must be MODEL X (mod 10 in Roman numeral) which didn??t occur to me because I??ve seen mod numbers that are mods ?ÿ
Every screw looks factory set. It??s never been touched.
So it??s in limited non-commercial service.?ÿ
You might rethink the age. SN: under 10,000 is old. Age by serial number ?ÿ
I was a mortarman fortunate to get loaned out for a lot of surveying and fire direction duties. In the late 70s and early 80s we used two primary instruments. One was a Wild M1. It was external direct read, dual scale (left and right angles) in mils with the magnetic guts. The other was made by RCA whirlpool and was a very good copy of the Wild. Would love to find either one for the collection..
I donated one of those to the Historical Society. An old Vietnam veteran saw it and they sold it to him. It had a battery pack that powered little lights so you could read the verniers on the dark and a small wand light was also attached. It also had the military legs with it also. Didn't appear to have ever been used. Had the original bullet can case and a pyramid shaped wooden padded box. Also looked brand new. I didn't realize you could get money for it. I got it from a military auction. Nobody would bid on it so I got it pretty cheap .
MOD X ~ badass
