Twenty-five or thirty years ago, before there was such a thing as the internet, eBay or Craigslist, the best way to find interesting telescopes was to learn about antique auctions that had one or two to sell, so I avidly read the antique dealers' trade publications each week.
There was an ad for an auction in rural Maine that had a tapered mahogany tubed Dollond telescope that was about 3 1/2 feet long. The woman who answered the phone when I called didn't know the difference between diameter and circumference, so I couldn't learn very much. After she described the general condition, I figured that if she got an image then it might be worth leaving a modest bid, so I asked
"Can you see through it?".
"Um, let me see. Yes, I CAN see through it."
It was too far to drive and sight unseen, so I bid about $150 figuring I was unlikely to get it, but sometimes you get lucky. Turns out I won at my maximum bid (sometimes a problem with left bids, another reason to go in person), but when it arrived by mail I found that I'd asked the wrong question. I should have asked if it formed an image that magnified. Turned out that there were no optics, and of course you can see through an empty tube just fine. I have saved it to this day as a reminder of why many things are indeed too good to be true.
The pictures show it is(was) a late 18th century telescope made not that long after Dollond's achromat patent, so it would have been a nice thing to have.
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