The Earliest Existing Schaefer Mount?

In April, 2008 there was a Schaefer mount offered on e-bay. I was contacted by Dr. Timothy J. Parker of JPL to see if I knew anything about the history of the scope and its possible worth. It was clearly one of Bill’s earlier models, but at the time I had no definitive idea of when it was built. As to its value, for any collectable the worth is whatever the highest bidder is willing to pay. The instrument was sold from e-bay to Paul Glus of Jackson Heights, NY, who then offered it almost immediately for resale. He has apparently made the sale and the telescope is now in the possession of the new buyer who is unknown to me.

I have, however, come to a conclusion as to when the instrument was built, and it may well be the oldest Schaefer mount still around. Dave Radosevich and I discussed a number of design changes that Bill made over the years, and we looked at the photographs we had on hand. I am convinced that the e-bay telescope is the one that Bill is standing in front of in the 1957 photograph above (or one identical to it). I see absolutely no difference between the mount and the finder in the 1957 photo and the corresponding elements in the e-bay advertisement. The motor drive is by the same company (Hagen), and the eyepiece focuser is the screw type, not rack and pinion. You can see for yourself by examining the two sets of photographs below, one comparing finders and one comparing mounts. The only variation I see is a countersunk screw hole on the counterweight shaft (1957), and I suspect that this is due to the fact that the shaft in the modern photo is turned away from the camera. This could, of course, be readily confirmed by looking at the telescope. The e-bay tripod is also identical to the 1957 model. The only addition to the e-bay telescope is an eyepiece holder attached to the tripod, and apparently the whole assembly (tube as well as mount) has been painted.

There is also a feature on the 1957/e-bay scope that appears to be unique: a lock screw on the shaft. From all of the photographic evidence available to me, no other Schaefer mount has that lock screw. For example, there is whole battery of Schaefer mounts on display in a photo taken at Charlton Flats in 1957 (see photo in the biographical section: http://www.cerritos.edu/ladkins/Web%20Page/Articles/Bill_Schaefer/BillBio.htm), and not one of them has a lock screw.

The only question seems to be “How many of these mounts did Bill make?” The e-bay telescope is either the exact scope Bill is standing in front of, or one of identical design built in that era. I don’t know what Bill’s production mode was at that time. By the 1980s each mount was pretty much unique, but, of course, these were much larger instruments, mostly built to spec.