Featured Antique Opera Glasses + Case. "Cooke & Kelvey - Calcutta"

Today's antique-shop purchase:













Research tells me that Cooke & Kelvey was established as a silversmith, watchmaker, clockmaker and jeweler, operating out of Calcutta, starting in 1858. I expect that they didn't make these, but that they were probably the retailer who sold them (and therefore, had these badged for their store).

The text is hard to read, but it says: "COOKE & KELVEY / CALCUTTA" on each eyepiece.

Speaking of opera glasses with original leather cases, I managed to pick up a junker pair of opera glasses and their original case at the flea-market. The glasses were a TOTAL loss. Broken far too much and missing too many pieces to make repairs possible. But I salvaged the lenses from them, and then I cleaned and fixed the case, and now my French 'Le Jockey Club' racing glasses...



...have an original, period case, to call home!:



It's a perfect fit, you couldn't ask for anything better!:





All in all, a great day's antiquing!

 

The lenses on the Jockey Club binoculars were scratched. The lenses on the trashed binoculars were in surprisingly good condition.

As they were exactly the same size, I was able to remove the scratched lenses from the functional binoculars, and put in the comparatively flawless lenses from the trashed binoculars, and simply drop them in and screw them in place. They fit perfectly. They looked brand new. You'd never tell the difference!

So I got new lenses for my racing binoculars, and a new case for them, all for $5.

Not bad, hey?

I kept the slightly scuffed lenses, as spares, just in case I ever buy another one which is the same size...

 

Sometimes the gods don't just smile --they grin! Congrats!

 

Oh Lordy I hate to say how many pairs of them we played with as youngsters (my Mom being the AVID collector!) GREAT salvaging Shangas!!!!!!

 

Thanks Aquitaine.

I don't profess to being much of a collector, but I now have eight pairs!

 

The underside of the Cooke & Kelvey case has a piece of paper glued onto it. I only just noticed it.

It says:

"M... J.T. Caldwell" (presumably Mr. or Miss/Mrs).
"73, Orlando St. Hampton".

I've researched the address. It's down the coast from where I live. So these glasses haven't gone very far!!