Many thanks to olguy, Sojourner1x1x1, NMBob (great to have the original sale date and optics numbers), Rugheimer (nice to hear of another early C8 – please can we have some more photos?), Glenn Graham (please can we have some more photos and can I check that the last digit of the serial number is 8 and not 9?), gcdunlap, Returning-to-the-sky (could your father have purchased the scope in 1979?), STELLAR49 (nice to hear of a Tuthill scope – could we have some pictures please of the various Tuthill additions?), Zekester, afernald (thanks for the original sale date), Dale65, whizbang, Ptkacik, Joerhatfield (thanks for the details on the special production run for S&S Optika and I second B 26354 and John (CCD-Freak) in a request for photos please?) and toyhole (nice to have another tri-colour on the list and great to get an original sale date for an 8 series serial #) for the serial numbers and other details of their C8s.
I’ve now added them to the C8 Registry and bumped it to the 15th Edition. As usual, the new entries are highlighted in blue and to keep the file size down I've only shown an image of the top part of the list in the image below, however the orange link above will take you to a jpg of the full version.
With regard to motor numbers, as I’ve noted in the C5 Registry thread, whilst Don is right in that when looking at a single C8 in isolation, the motor date only gives the earliest date that the scope could have been made (assuming of course that the motors haven’t been replaced at some later stage) because Celestron could have purchased 100,000 motors in 1975 and be still using them for scopes produced in 1982, this is where I think there is value in recording the motor dates along with the serial numbers as it then gives an idea of how quickly Celestron’s stock of motors was turned over.
Unfortunately, when we get to the scopes produced after 1979 which have serial numbers with no date indicators we don’t really have much to go on other than motor dates and the odd data point provided by a scope that has a verified purchase date (and even then there is no telling how long it might have sat in the dealer’s stock).
As ever, all contributions, clarifications and corrections gratefully received and remember – we love pictures too (and they help to detail the smaller changes over the years such as whether phillips or hex head screws were used for the secondary adjustment.)
James