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Tabby


Pauls

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Good Evening

 

I've got what I think some people call a Tabby, its a monocular type in its box, I can't test it or use it so I'm wondering if they are worth anything? Or even if people want them.

I've put some pictures of it on here hope they show up

 

Cheers

 

PaulIMG_20150914_192954.jpg

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That's a nice example of Tabby Type F. I still have one but I don't have the nice box.

 

5C/ is an RAF Vocabulary prefix for aircraft electrical stores.

 

You need about 3,000 volts to get the cathode to start to glow. All the different CV converter tubes seems to be of similar construction & I think they were designated according to the sensitivity of individual tubes on test.

 

See page 12 of this http://www.hmvf.co.uk/pdf/Tabby01.pdf

 

Also look at the original Star Wars & you will see these masquerading as gun sights!

Edited by fv1609
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In answer to your question about value I would suggest £75-95

 

Here is the one I sold a few years ago.

 

Dscf2489a.jpg

 

As I said this is RAF. Sometimes you will see references to Tabby Type K being used by the RN, but not if they are in a case marked ZA2312 as that is Army (a reference to the item in Vocabulary of Army Ordnance Stores Section ZA).

 

RN ones are marked AP W6817 (Admiralty Pattern stores section W) & inside the lid refers to CB004222 (Confidential Book - RN security classification)

 

I can't find a Star Wars picture. I've never seen the film but the men in white plastic suits (or are they robots?) in the original film (that was made on a shoe string) had some German guns with these Tabby Type F stuck on the top. Some years ago a Star Wars film buff started a thread on here as he had been searching for years to find a picture of the Tabby Type F. He sent me a picture to confirm it but I can't find it. All that googling turns up are later versions of the white plastic men with more modern guns.

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This is reaching way back, I had a working one of these many years ago, it came with a "Zamboni pile". After a few years knocking around it no longer worked so I took the piles (3 of them in clear plastic tubes) out of the casing to have a look, turned out they are just multicell batteries with hundreds of cells a few thou thick. Thousands of volts at micro amps.

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...At least I was right in my identification :)

I did try to run the monocular from a megger meter when the pile failed, it didn't work.

 

Megger output voltage is nowhere near enough. I built a small Cockroft-Walton multiplier on a couple of strips of tagboard which worked quite well. (Admittedly with something of a "hissing" sound from corona discharge while testing.)

 

:D

 

Chris.

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  • 3 years later...

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