German Optical & Precision Instrument Three Letter Codes 1940 During hostilities, the German Government tried to hide the names of the factories still in production. They issued every factory with a unique code which was engraved on the instrument instead of the makers name and location. e.g. Zeiss in Jena used blc and Leitz ( Leica ) beh Dr Hans Seegar's book Fernglaser und Fernrohre has quite detailed addresses for most of these codes. ISBN 3-00-000457-2 bbw Electro

World War II Naval Optics: Kollmorgen 20x120 A brief history of Kollmorgen Frederick Kollmorgen was a German skilled in optics who, after some time honing his craft in Vienna and London, came to New York in the early 1900’s. When the US Navy placed a bid for periscopes, Kollmorgen decided to start his own company. Building on his own knowledge and experience, he developed the best periscope optical sets in the United States with French optical glass. After the First World War

On the 25th of July, 1917, three leading optical manufacturers (Fuji, Tokyo Keiki Seisaku Sho and Iwaki Glass) joined together to form Nippon Kogaku K. K. Though we know the company now as Nikon Corporation, famous for its professional photo equipment of the same name, the company actually started as a fully integrated optical company. When forming the company, their goal was to manufacture optical munitions, more specifically binoculars for the Japanese armed forces. The rea

The 10x80 Flak binoculars are large observation binoculars made by Germany during the Second World War. They have a 45 degree angle between the eyepieces and the objective lenses. They were manufactured by 6 different manufacturers and between 150.000 and 200.000 units where made during WWII. In 1936, the German government wanted large aperture observational binoculars for general purpose. The 10x80 binoculars were meant for air observation in the German armed forces. A numbe