Hey, how's it going? Good. Good. What do we have here? It's a World War II bombsight. [patriotic music] This thing is really cool. Are you sure it's not, like,
a James Bond nuclear bomb, or something like that? [bomb falls and explodes] [laughter] Anybody who collects World War
II stuff is going to love this. So how much you
want for this thing? I really don't know. Based on what you shared
with me, as much as possible. OK, let me call a guy up. He's the curator of
an aviation museum. So he'll know more about it. I'll be right back. All right. Thank you. I really hope I
don't get embarrassed, and this thing is
a microwave oven. You think you've got a real
Norden bombsight this time. I think so. There's no identifying
anything on it. Yes, well, it's part
of a Norden bombsight. What you've got
is the sight head. What you're missing is the
stabilizer and the autopilot, the rest of the
Norden bombsight. But you have the
iconic part, the part-- I have the head of the statue. [laughs] That's right. This is the part
that people know. It probably was
on a naval plane. With the kind of wear that's
on it, probably a Mark 15. It's something
that anybody who is into iconic pieces
from World War II, they're going to be
very interested in this. Cool. Thanks, man.
I appreciate it. Not a problem.
Very cool. All right, I'll tell you what. I'll give you 800 bucks for it. Top secret,
historical significance, head of the statue,
great mantelpiece for World War II buffs. Yeah, I know. It's not all there. We have pieces missing. And it's obviously
not that secret. Uh-- [laughter] You know, I'll tell you what. I'll give you 1,000 bucks. I think it's a fair price. You got it for nothing. And I gotta find
someone to buy it. All good points. Fair enough. 1,000 bucks is more than
I had when I came in. I'll take it.
Thank you. Sweet. I'll meet you right
around the corner. We'll do some paperwork. Thank you. It's not a pizza maker. But I'm gonna make a lot of
dough on this, hopefully. You like it so much,
it's not downstairs, it's in your office? Well, I'm thinking about,
like, you know, I got my Bolt. I got my Norden bombsight. So what do you think? I mean, they're
incredibly rare. They're very difficult to
find because most of them were decommissioned
after the war. You're lucky to get it. So developed for
World War II, used in most of the major
bomber aircrafts, the B-17 by Boeing, the B-24 by Douglas. The B-17 had a crew of 10 men. And now, there is a
pilot, a co-pilot. There was a navigator,
and there was, specifically, a bombardier. You, as the bombardier,
have to decide when to let the bombs go. Before this, they used
to have to do charts. And it would take them
so long to figure it out that they were already
missing their targets. Because of this sight,
the accuracy improved dramatically for the bombers. This allowed them
to get within about a 30-meter circle
of where they were trying to hit from 20,000 feet. Then that's why-- They were so advanced
that they wound up using them all the way to
the beginning stages of Vietnam. They're dropping thousands and
thousands of tons of bombs, based on one of these sights. That's crazy. I didn't know exactly what one
of these things looked like, so I had Mark Hall
Patton look at it. And yeah, he says, yeah,
this is a Norden bombsight, at least the major part of one. Yes. Well, there are-- there's
an eye cup that goes here. You can see this part,
the post is gone. But for the most part, from
the ones that I've seen, it is pretty much complete. This plugs into allow
it to have light. And then these lever
or dials over here adjust and calibrate this sight. And you're actually looking
down through the plane, down at the ground. Dials help you understand your
airspeed and your direction. And from that, based on
charts that you have, which this whole
part here slides out. And they would have done
that, and they would have kept different maps, charts. You do have a data
plate here, US Navy. Yes, so this is a Mark 16. It's the M Series. This is the standard bombsight. The US Army Air Force used
them, and the US Navy used them. OK. So what do you think it's worth? Well, one in this
condition, which is, I would say on a scale
of 1 to 10, it's a 7-- you know, there's a few
minor missing parts, but it's mostly clean
and mostly together. It's nice that you
have the data plate. That really helps it. And this appeals to
military collectors but also instrument
collectors because this is the end of an era. It was the height of what you
could do with instrumentation. So I think in this condition,
it's at least $2,500. OK, cool, because I
paid a grand for it. You did? Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. All right, I got some
other stuff to show you. Come on. Oh, it's really cool. I might actually
keep that, though. It looks good on your desk.
