That's something!!! All the cool stuff falls your way,  I didn't see/notice that there.    
So according to what I remember these would have come around shortly after they moved from Creedmore to Sea Girt and the military had their fingers in it?   
Nice find!

JLouis wrote on Jun 17^th, 2017 at 3:17pm:


There are no maker's marks John, but it has a serial number and is French built. Most of these long range spotting scopes from the 1800's were French.
Had a gentleman come by my table right after I purchased it, and asked if he could look it over. I knew very little at purchase, but he seemed to be quite expert at these. He looked it over, and looked at the serial number. Then he began to get excited and asked me how I came by it, and when I told him I'd just purchased it, and the seller had told me he bought scope and tripod separately, he was amazed! He said that not only was it the correct tripod for the scope, but they were 1892 French vintage. He also told me the tripod was far more valuable than the scope, although both were very desirable. 
I just thought it was pretty neat, and very affordable, and fell in love with it.

Flatlander wrote on Jun 17^th, 2017 at 9:00pm:


This was a Friday before the show opened purchase.

Joe Do... wrote on Jun 18^th, 2017 at 11:25am:


Don't believe that at such long-range matches, the individual shooter was ordinarily doing his own spotting--his team-mate did so from some position other than laying prone on the ground, as is usually done at BPCR matches today.  Here's one of the many Harper's prints depicting shooting at Creed's Moor.

JLouis wrote on Jun 17^th, 2017 at 3:17pm:


I'm a bit embarrassed, as I thought I'd looked this old scope over quite well! But this morning I was looking it over again and found the maker's rollstamp! The rollstamp reads as follows:

SELSI
E. VION PARIS
RIFLE RANGE TELESCOPE
Power 33 Times
Made in France

From what I've found, Selsi-E. Vion was not importing scopes into the US until the post WWI era. And before WWII the company name changed to simply "SELSI". Then after WWII the company no longer made their scopes in France, and instead had them built in Japan. 
They also made scopes for maritime and astrological use. Since this one is marked, "RIFLE RANGE TELESCOPE" it's obvious it's a long range spotting scope, and not for other use.

Is your BUSCH-SELSI a 5 segment scope? I found reference to a Busch-Selsi when trying to find more data on mine. Not sure if the responder was correct (it was the internet!) but he said it was around WWII or after.

rkba2nd,
Please tell us about the news paper test.

Frank