The sextant has a dark grey-lacquered brass three-circle pattern frame and a wooden handle. The tangent screw and clamping screw are on the back of the index arm. The instrument has four grey shades and three grey horizon shades that can be moved into place when observing in bright conditions. Index-glass adjustment is made by a screw and on the horizon-glass by capstan screws.

Attached to the sextant is a magnifier on an 80mm swivelling arm, with a frosted glass shade that is broken. There is also a threaded telescope bracket in two parts, fitted for correcting collimation error. It has perpendicular adjustment made by a rising-piece and a milled screw. The telescope is 84 mm in length with an erect image. A second telescope is 182 mm long with an inverted image and four cross wires. An extra drawtube is 81 mm long with two parallel cross wires. The sight-tube is 81 mm in length with a red shaded eyepiece, an adjusting pin, and a magnifying glass, which is missing.

The instrument has a polished brass limb with inlaid silver scale from -5° to 160° by 10 arcminutes, measuring to 135°. The sextant has a silver vernier measuring to 10 arcseconds, with zero at the right.

The sextant is contained in a square fitted mahogany box, with a small ivory plate for, ‘Coombes Optican and Admiralty Agent Devonport’. The lid contains a Kew Observatory certificate of examination, dated February 1891. An inlaid brass plate in the lid is marked ‘A. Milne Home’.

A. Milne Home, the original owner, may have been the son of David Milne Home (1805-90) who assumed the name Milne Home in 1852.
According to an advertisement in the 'Post Office Directory of Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse of 1906-1907', Messrs Coombes were optical and scientific instrument makers at ‘The Observatory’, Fore Street in Devonport (established 1806) and manufactured sextants for the Royal Navy, and the Britannia Royal Naval College.