[Seeker]

I'm looking for info on this German scope. I cannot find anything on the web about this scope as value etc. The scope is marked B NICKEL "SUPRA" MARBURG/L Supra-4x36 LS1 E/S Made in Germany. If anyone can give me any info on it I sure would appreciate it.
Thanks

 

[terrymccue]

marbury scope

I have a similar scope from my grandfather. 2 1/2- 6 in need of a cap and a lens. maybe we can work something out. please contact me [email protected]

 

[billy]

Check out gerhardt or hertal and reuss, the nickel supra they are all the same manufacturer, Just different owners over the years.

 

[defcolt]

Marburgh scope

I have a German B-nickel Supra Marburgh scope in 4-10X(40?) variable I am trying to find out about. any gained knowlege??? willing to pass it on??? Would really appreciate it.

 

[Karel Jongkind]

The B Nickel business started in 1926 or there about . Mr Nickel worked before that for Carl Zeis in Jena and thought that he could do better and had the time on his side with the lurking WWO two . After the war they started with producing hunting scopes who were of very good quality . In the 60 the company was taken over by an other German company called Hertel and Reuss . The take over was because ther was nobody to take over from Mr Nickel to keep the business in the family . Hertel and Reuss kept it going untilll they stopped in the 80 but allways kept a very high standard of quality also to there own name . In 1996 the name and rights were bought by an other German company and the started to produce high end top quality scopes under the name Nickel and still do . They only bought the name and not the knowledge and plans or details of the scopes under the name B Nickels , so there is nothing left of that . There are still a good number of the old scopes around and they are very good but the whole way of scope manufacturing has changed due to the advanced technic but if they don't have to much wear and tear they can still be good contenders for today . Hope that this will give any useful information .

 

[Paul Miles]

Yours is an interesting post, Karel. I have been writing a story about old German scopes but have had trouble finding much about B. Nickel. I have found that a Bernhard Nickel at Marburg filed about a dozen patents between 1937 and the mid-'70s, mostly to do with optics.

Is your year of 1926 OK, or did you perhaps mean 1936? I only ask because were he a qualified engineer at Jena before leaving in the mid-'20s (for the reason you mention) he would not only have been very prescient then but quite an old inventor by 1976.

You probably know that Nick Stroebel claimed in 'Old Gunsights & Rifle Scopes' that Nickel was still working at Jena in 1945 and picked up with scores of other important Zeiss people by a US 'rescue' team before the Russians moved in. Nickel's 1937 shared patent lists Marburg as the address but I'm wondering if he may have been ordered back to Zeiss during the war. Any further info you have on him would be gratefully received, by private message perhaps, if G&G has that provision.

 

[Karel Jongkind]

1. Hello Paul ., This is the story that I after some research got from the web . At that time there were a lot of small optic firms in Germany . They were mostly involved in microscopes and other medical and industrial optics , the whole rifle scope business came with the WWO 2 . There was a trading comp. by the name of Bauer who omly dealt in optics but had later optics produced user there own name and still does . Bousch and lomb is now more involved in producing optics for glasses , the rifle scope line was bought by Burris . Many of those small comp. We're bought by bigger ones or just stopped . As I wrote in the previous message the B Nickel name was bought by a bigger German optics company and started manufacturing a high end rifle scope under the name Nickel . And when I contacted them they told me that they only bought the name of Hertel and Reus and also Nickel but not the parents and that they had no information about th products . If I find out more I will let you know . Greetings Karel

 

[Paul Miles]

The American company of Bausch & Lomb used to make some of the best scopes/mounts in the world, with the greatest optical integrity coming from their philosophy of wanting no reticle adjustments at all within the tube. They would not even cushion the lenses, like Lyman, for fear of cushioning eventually causing parallax after being compressed by recoil.

Unfortunately, their merger with Bushnell around 1970 was effectively a reverse takeover of the riflescope business, meaning the B&L outlook went out the window.

Hertel & Reuss, the company that swallowed Nickel, had originally grown out of some bankruptsy at Gerhard in the early 20th Century, according to Stroebel. This may have something to do with H&R being nominally taken back into Gerhard recently. That the name Nickel AG has been adopted for their most prestigious products is, I believe, a clue to the respect held for the old scopes made by B. Nickel at Marburg 50 years before. As you said, though, the people there seemed to know nothing about the history of the old firm, not even what the B. stood for.

 

[Karel Jongkind]

The American company of Bausch & Lomb used to make some of the best scopes/mounts in the world, with the greatest optical integrity coming from their philosophy of wanting no reticle adjustments at all within the tube. They would not even cushion the lenses, like Lyman, for fear of cushioning eventually causing parallax after being compressed by recoil.

Unfortunately, their merger with Bushnell around 1970 was effectively a reverse takeover of the riflescope business, meaning the B&L outlook went out the window.

Hertel & Reuss, the company that swallowed Nickel, had originally grown out of some bankruptsy at Gerhard in the early 20th Century, according to Stroebel. This may have something to do with H&R being nominally taken back into Gerhard recently. That the name Nickel AG has been adopted for their most prestigious products is, I believe, a clue to the respect held for the old scopes made by B. Nickel at Marburg 50 years before. As you said, though, the people there seemed to know nothing about the history of the old firm, not even what the B. stood for.

 

[Karel Jongkind]

1. Hello Paul ., I have an old N Nickel scope . When I bought it I was very unknown about those scopes . The photos that were placed on EBay the scopes are so done that you don't see the underneath . The older ones only have an elevation adjustment and they have an dovetail connection to the mounts and the side adjustment is in the back mount . No need to say that the mounts cost a fortune in Europe and are hard to get . So if you want to use an old German scope , make sure what you buy . They start to use that old system again on the modern Mauser M03 . The big European optic company 'a made a deal with the Blazer holding comp and the old dovetail is back , different in size off course . The Mauser M03 , who is made by Blazer holding has a patented quick release system and have that system and Zeiss is adding a dovetail on request and I know that S+B and the new Nickel has them .
2. Regards Karel

 

[Paul Miles]

1. Hello Paul ., I have an old N Nickel scope . When I bought it I was very unknown about those scopes . The photos that were placed on EBay the scopes are so done that you don't see the underneath . The older ones only have an elevation adjustment and they have an dovetail connection to the mounts and the side adjustment is in the back mount . No need to say that the mounts cost a fortune in Europe and are hard to get . So if you want to use an old German scope , make sure what you buy . They start to use that old system again on the modern Mauser M03 . The big European optic company 'a made a deal with the Blazer holding comp and the old dovetail is back , different in size off course . The Mauser M03 , who is made by Blazer holding has a patented quick release system and have that system and Zeiss is adding a dovetail on request and I know that S+B and the new Nickel has them .
2. Regards Karel

Yes Karel, I agree with your facts but take a more charitable view of them. I have bought a lot of old Zeiss/Hensoldt and Nickel etc scopes on ebay, mostly from sellers who showed many pics, upon which I could zoom to read serial numbers. One merchant who trades as 'German Sniper' even shows good views through the scope, from which I can judge the field blending.

I have great respect for only having elevation turrets because it leaves less to wear and cause trouble inside. With two springs (at 5 and 7 o'clock) I believe it would constitute the most robust system next to Bausch & Lomb's old 'Custom' scopes, which have no adjustments inside, at all, at all.

The rails, though usually found with holes drilled from the last mounting, do stiffen the scope against bending. I've found old 14mm female-dovetail bits online that fit Optilock bases. After heating some Blaser dovetails, I got them on to a Nickel 1.5-6x36. Miraculously, it line up perfectly on my old Sako .338, without my having to find out how the Optilock lateral adjustments worked, and have stayed rock solid since. Many old scopes used 14mm (o/s) rails but, as you say, modern ones are all over the place - a boon for Recknagel, I suspect.
Cheers - Paul

 

[Paul Miles]

In case anyone is still looking for info on Nickel and other old reticle-movement scopes, I've since published a book on the matter called LIGHT AT THE START OF THE TUNNEL Are rifle scopes off the rails?

Among other things I finally cut up an old Nickel and found that the reticle movement was even stronger than I'd expected, just one step short of the Oldham coupling arrangement used in the M84 scope made for the M1 (Garand) rifle after WWII.

Anyone interested in the book could email [email protected] in case I forget to look in here often enough.