I am on the verge of buying a second hand sextant and have to make a choice.
Both are from the same vendor in Holland and are the same price. Bothered in perfect conditio. Both are about the same age. Both came from breakers.
I am in Australia so I cannot handle them before purchase .
One is a Tamaya MS-633 a more economy model made for the Japanese domestic market although some were sold overseas. It has an aluminium frame with a bronze arc different to their top of the range models. It is certified as having 0 error (less than 9") alo g all of the arc. The mirrors and filters are the same as the more expensive Tamaya models, it has a 7x35 scope and a good plastic case.
The second sextant is a better known 3rd ģeneration Freiberger, Aluminium frame with an aluminium arc and has a timber case also in perfect condition. It has a 4x scope.The hitch with this one, is that it has up to 46" of error on parts of the arc. I am not sure whether this amount of error will be a problem or is it within acceptable limits.
Anyone with any experience with sextants your advice would be greatly appreciated. I was considering buying both, but the minister of finance found out.
Freiberger is an excellent sextant. I bought one off a guy on ebay for a song many years ago and it has produced excellent fixes. I’m curious what you mean by “it has up to 46” error on parts of the arc" though. All errors on a sextant should be able to be dialed out with a proper adjustment unless there is damage to the frame.
My personal advice is to check ebay frequently and you may find someone who doesn’t know what they have. That is also how I found my Navistar and a fetching pair of Zeiss binoculars. Patience is the name of the game.
The Freibergers and Tamayas and many others, come with a factory inspection card marked in increments of the sextant arc, 90,100,120 sort of thing and at each increment the inspector records the amount of reading error. These errors mostly occur during the manufacturing process.
I believe if the error is less than 9 seconds then it is recorded as 0.
These errors occur during manufacturing and not sure if reading errors be dialled out, they may be able to be compensated for mathematically. Or so I have been told.
The Tamaya has 0 error recorded for the arc, the Frieberger has errors ranging from -16" to +46".
Received an excellent new-conditioned Tamaya 633. Zero non-adjustable error and today I adjusted out the mirror error very easily. I am very impressed at what I got especially at the price.
I can highly recommend the seller, everything went very smoothly and there was excellent support, lots of pics and questions answered pre and post purchase.