When I was 11 or 12 I found a wonderful old compass in an abandoned shed after they floated a neighbour's house away from where we lived on the beach in Port Hardy.
I don't have it any more, it disappeared when my parents moved while I was away at school several years later.
It was a gray box slightly bigger than the old flat cigarette packages, with the finish a kind of textured (parkerized maybe?) paint or treatment.
It opened and closed on a hinge and was very heavy but had some sophisticated "extras' around the dial that I didn't understand.
I always thought it was a captured German infantry compass, but looking at photos of those now on the 'net it doesn't appear to be so.
I may never know as my recollection of it is vague now 45 years later, but I wonder if there is a source of photos of various (Canadian, British, U.S) military compasses to compare?
Maybe it was a logger's timber cruising compass?
I found a photo on Google images of a U.S. M2 artillery compass that looks a lot like it, but I seem to remember it wasn't a square but rather a horseshoe-shaped casing.
I don't have it any more, it disappeared when my parents moved while I was away at school several years later.
It was a gray box slightly bigger than the old flat cigarette packages, with the finish a kind of textured (parkerized maybe?) paint or treatment.
It opened and closed on a hinge and was very heavy but had some sophisticated "extras' around the dial that I didn't understand.
I always thought it was a captured German infantry compass, but looking at photos of those now on the 'net it doesn't appear to be so.
I may never know as my recollection of it is vague now 45 years later, but I wonder if there is a source of photos of various (Canadian, British, U.S) military compasses to compare?
Maybe it was a logger's timber cruising compass?
I found a photo on Google images of a U.S. M2 artillery compass that looks a lot like it, but I seem to remember it wasn't a square but rather a horseshoe-shaped casing.
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