A Rare Set of U-Boat Commander's Binoculars c.1943 by Carl Zeiss of Jena

These binoculars feature a heavy and solid steel body, painted in a moss green, with coated objective and viewing lenses, four rubber caps protecting both objective lenses and both eyepieces, stamped "7 x 50" (magnification), "55187" (serial number) and "blc" (German wartime code for Carl Zeiss, Jena) on the body beside the right eyepiece and covered by the rubber cap. The body tubes housing the lenses are joined together at two locations to a central focusing ring, each of the rubber eyepiece caps with non-magnetic black painted u-shaped brackets in place, the loops on the underside of both tubes with a dark brown finished leather strap fed through them, the straps slotted and secured in place by posts, a protective black plastic cap fastened to two short dark brown leather straps via rivets, the opposite ends of the short straps stitched in place to sliders on the neck strap. The binoculars weigh 1,804 grams, measure 200 mm in length x 205 mm in width and when fully extended, they measure 220 in width. They exhibit scattered chipping in the moss green paint on the body, a crack on the top side of the left eyepiece rubber cap, light contact on the protective black plastic cap, along with light crazing in the leather straps, the lenses themselves free of scratches. Better than very fine.