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A few days ago, making an enquiry in a thread entitled "Buying a Mark IX A 
bubble sextant", I opened a discussion on approaching the purchase of a 
sextant of this type. In response to my thread, Ken Gebhart made an offer to 
sell two bubble sextants to the list. If any list members are interested in 
this offer but have not responded accordingly because you think that I, 
having expressed an interest in buying an instrument of this type, ought to 
have the privilege of making the purchase, then please let me say that I 
would not feel comfortable about forestalling anyone's efforts in this way 
and that you should not feel obliged to defer your response to Ken's offer on 
my account. In my opinion, the offer is unambiguously directed at all list 
members.

Christian Scheele


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Gebhart" 
To: NavList@fer3.com
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 4:13:03 AM GMT +02:00 Harare / Pretoria
Subject: [NavList] Re: buying a Mark IX A bubble sextant

Permit me to chime in here.  We (Celestaire) mentioned on this List 2 years 
ago, that we had a number of MK IXs that we were trying to find a home for. 
 We sold them for $50 each, which was mainly for digging them out, and 
packing them up, and including an instruction manual and other advice for 
overhaul.  They were sold "as is", and we sold about 30 of them to NavList 
members.  All of the mirrors were in pretty good shape, and most bubbles were 
too.  We are now down to mirrors that are blotched, and bubbles uncertain. 
 The blotched mirrors are still usable, but if you restore the sextant 
otherwise, you would probably want to re-silver the mirrors then.  They do 
not come with cases. 


Here's the deal.  We will supply two of the remaining (about 50) sextants for 
the same $50.  If you happen to be driving through Wichita, we will give them 
to you for FREE.  This is not meant to be a commercial pitch to the List 
(which I would never do).  I just can't bring myself to put them in the 
trash. 


Ken Gebhart 


On May 16, 2010, at 12:50 PM, jean-philippe planas wrote: 


Dear Christian, 

260 GBP or so would more likely be the asking price of an excellent 
instrument, carried on the catalog of a commercial business (which includes 
sales taxes etc), freshly and professionnally fully overhauled, in as new 
condition, accurately calibrated on a specialised optical rig and ready to be 
legally used for navigation purposes on an airplane or ship, with a 1 or 2 
year warranty, perfect case, accessories, certificate of calibration, users 
manuals etc. 

My advice is to avoid this deal, it's a rip off. No way this guy ever finds 
customers for his instruments at this price. 

JPP 



--- On Sun, 5/16/10, Christian Scheele < scheele@telkomsa.net > wrote: 



From: Christian Scheele < scheele@telkomsa.net > 
Subject: [NavList] Re: buying a Mark IX A bubble sextant 
To: NavList@fer3.com 
Date: Sunday, May 16, 2010, 6:46 AM 



Dear Paul, Jean-Philippe, Douglas and Ian, 

please allow me to collectively thank you for your helpful advice. I am 
negotiating the possible purchase of one or two Mark IX sextants. Buying a 
second model on offer would to my mind be an additional option should it 
might be necessary for me to cannibalise one in order to assemble one model 
which is complete in parts that can then be fully overhauled. The seller is 
in Durban and I live in Cape Town about 1000 miles away, so I am glad that 
you have put some hard and fast criteria at my fingertips with which I can 
probe these instruments from a distance. The seller, who claims not to be 
knowledgable in the Mark IX's use - I suspect that he mistook the total 
instrument error of 2,5 minutes error certified on the label  for 2,5 seconds 
- is asking for a price equivalent to GBP 260 for each. In view of what can 
be regarded more or less as a consensus over an acceptable price range for 
the Mark IX, at least as far as Navlist members who have commented on the 
subject in this and recent related threads, "astronomical" is the only word 
that I can find to describe this offer and I expect the deal to fall through. 
Of course it is very unlikely that the instrument will not need callibration. 
In any event, through your help I am now in the position to roughly assess 
the models over the phone. Thanks again to everyone who invested their 
expertise and time in my request, I'll let you know how things go. 

Christian Scheele 

   

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