Wednesday, August 27, 2008

From Russia, For Cash




















Here's my Nagant, marked 1923/45. To complete the retrospy look, it is paired with a tiny Russian radiotelegraph key! (Which joined Collection X courtesy of Turk Turon, presumably smuggled out by camel-train from Bishkek).

I should have added a coin (kopek?) for scale. The knob of the key is about two-thirds the diameter of a penny.

And just to prove I truly do commute from The Past, one of the radio bookshelves in my office at Roseholme. Note the very modern cameras -- no leathette-covered cardboard Brownie for this gal! -- and high-fidelity Rochelle-salts crystal microphone, improvised from a Brush-Clevite headphone element plus odds and ends, not to mention the very latest edition of Radio magazine's Handbook and several previous years as well.

(Time travel works both ways -- at the upper right, you can just see two editions of Horowitz and Hill's The Art Of Electronics, a marvelous book for anyone with a scientific or technical background who needs to "do" electronics. The boys'll get you up to speed fast! Why two? They did do a fair amount of revsions and expansion but I wore out my first copy; I only keep it for sentiment).

9 comments:

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Damn you gots some cool stuff.

Anonymous said...

This is an incredible strategic move.

I've been around a LOT of women at the range, and first of all, range women are naturally hotter than "normal" women. Guy thing, I'm sure. Now, a plain looking woman shooting an average looking firearm is a joy to behold. An average looking woman shooting an average looking firearm is a trest. "You see that woman shooting that Smith ten? Nice!!!"

A hot dame shooting a brutally, brutally ugly firearm? "WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!"

The contrast between the firearm and the shooter makes the beauty of the shooter ever more apparent, is all I'm saying. Damn.

Turk Turon said...

That is a NICE-looking Nagant.

Did that .32 cylinder ever turn up?

Tam said...

It's in my box of shooty stuff in the attic. I'll lay hands on it if my roomie wants to go plinkin' with her new toy this weekend.

(Of course, I also have a hunnert-n-sumpin' rounds of Fiocchi 7.62 Nagant if she'd rather use that to fam-fire it...) :D

BobG said...

Nice old gun.
Love the cameras and mike; brings back a lot of memories of when I was a kid.

Anonymous said...

A 1923 Nagant? I'm jealous. Mine is but a 1938 Tula built revolver, if I recall.
But my real favorite is a 1910 Mosin rifle, with INTACT Imperial Russian Crests (except where the damn import overstamped one of them) Built the same year my now deceased grandmother was born.

Roberta X said...

Joseph: you win! Very kewl, indeed.

I'd inherited a twin-lens camera similar to the ones in the phote when I was a child. Left it on a train in Montreal when I was 9 and missed it ever since. The one on the left takes "620" film, 120 on a skinnier spool. They don't make it but B&H sells 120 rewound onto old 620 spools. They really, really want them back!

Og, you're makin' me blush an' stuff.

Anonymous said...

If Tam can't turn up that .32 cylinder, J&G Sales (Prescott, AZ) has 'em listed in their latest ad. 'Course, they're about the same price as the Nagants in the ad, too.

Anonymous said...

No sleep cant type look here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=vvF4yurWSc0