Carl Zeiss 8×60 binoculars in Swedish service

To my knowledge Sweden was the only country allowed to buy Carl Zeiss 8×60 binoculars from Germany before 1945. The 8×60 binoculars exported to Sweden in 1940 and earlier were not coated, although the German versions of the same binoculars were.

I have seen a photo of a binocular which I believe is a Carl Zeiss Deck mounted of an early type without filters. The photo is not good enough for me to be sure and no such binocular with Swedish markings has been collected. We have to wait for more
information to become available.

In July 1937 a series of 50 8x60H binoculars with “straight barrel” were ordered from Carl Zeiss. As I wrote under the heading “8x60H” on this website I believe that the whole series were sold to Sweden. At this time the German navy was issued with 8x60H binoculars with “stepped barrel” many with reticule illumination. Could it be that Sweden was allowed to by an old model not of interest to the German navy? The “Swedish” 8x60H I have seen all have a reticule in the right tube. It is a “cross hair” numbered to 50’ in all four directions but the 5’ in the middle are not engraved. There is no illumination device and I don´t think any first model with straight barrel had this, not even in Germany.

In January 1940 one monocular (198 90 49) and one binocular (198 90 50) Carl Zeiss 8×60 Deck mounted were ordered. The binocular is presented on page 36 in my
book and the monocular is in the collection of the maritime museum in Karlskrona:

https://digitaltmuseum.se/011024820428/malangivningskikare

In May 1940 a series of D.F.8×60 Deck mounted, the light weight model, were ordered for the Swedish navy. There is a bit of confusion over the number of binoculars ordered. The Zeiss list says 16 and the Swedish archives 18 pieces. You can read more about this binocular with pictures on page 36 in the book.

In February 1940 the Swedish navy ordered 9 D.F.8×60(The slim one) with reticule illumination and in August of the same year the Swedish army ordered 100 D.F.8×60 without the illumination device. You can read more about these binoculars and how they were used on page 34 and 35 of my book.

In 1944 D.F.8×60 porro 1 (fat 8×60) were ordered and used as observation binoculars. See page 39 in the book. These binoculars were coated by Carl Zeiss.

Finally after the war, in 1948, The Swedish navy bought surplus German U-boat binoculars. Most of them were D.F. 7×50 but at least four D.F.8×60 were included. See page 48 and 49 of my book.

My estimate of how manyCarl Zeiss 8×60 binoculars were bought by Sweden is as follows:

D.F.8x60H 50 pieces, D.F.8×60 Deck mounted monocular 1 piece

D.F.8×60 Deck mounted 17 pieces, D.F.8×60 (porro2) 109 pieces,

D.F.8×60 (porro1) 15 pieces

Total: 192 pieces