Original Item: Only One Available. Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very good condition U.S. WWI OD green painted wooden construction Trench Periscope, complete with its adjustable leg prop without metal belt hook. The battlefield is viewed by the use of two opposing glass mirrors, one top, one bottom, held in a wooden case held together by twisted wire. A fairly crude design but it got the job done, and was cheap. It still has the original U.S. Ordnance dept. markings on one side inside an oval, but is unfortunately too faded to read.

The periscope is in very good condition, with the mirrors in great shape, just a little dirty. There is a bit of wear and some chipping to the wooden housing, but that is to be expected on any item this age. Measures just over 14 inches in length.

A very hard to find genuine Great War example, fully marked and ready to display or use!

Periscope
A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with mirrors at each end set parallel to each other at a 45° angle. This form of periscope, with the addition of two simple lenses, served for observation purposes in the trenches during World War I. Military personnel also use periscopes in some gun turrets and in armored vehicles.

More complex periscopes using prisms or advanced fiber optics instead of mirrors and providing magnification operate on submarines and in various fields of science. The overall design of the classical submarine periscope is very simple: two telescopes pointed into each other. If the two telescopes have different individual magnification, the difference between them causes an overall magnification or reduction.