Toy Microscope

Instruments for Personal Observations & Curiosity

c. 1850 – c. 1950

Richard Paselk, Curator

Rear Column

"Toy" Microscope

Microscope with complete button lens attached

Cap of button lens removed (see next to base)

Maker Unknown

French*

late 19th century; Private collection.

This is an early children’s or student microscope for making low power observations. Focusing is accomplished by sliding the body tube within a fixed tube held on the rear column. The two “button” objectives may be used singly or in combination to give three different magnifications. The microscope provides clear, bright images at about 75x with both lens in place.

Description

The instrument is in bright lacquered brass with black oxide finished bar limb, stage and mirror mount. The circular leaded brass base is 2” in diameter, supporting a 4” tubular pillar. The bar limb is attached to the top of the pillar with a knurled brass thumb-screw and supports a 11/16 ” dia x 1” high fixed tube (centered over the aperture) in which the body tube slides for focusing. The body tube is 3 1 /4” long with a 3/8” cone nose (with male threads). The single mirror is mounted in a 1 1/8” brass cell on a shaft penetrating the pillar. The stage is 1 1/8” w with a 3/8” central aperture. There are no stage clips or provisions for them. There are two button objective lenses to provide low power individually or high power in combination. An image of the microscope with a button lens separate is available here. There is a single ocular (with black oxide finished eye cup) 11/16” in diameter and 1 1/2” long. The instrument has the original bright lacquer finish. The microscope is 6 1/8” high when closed.

*Similar microscopes in other collections are described as French. For example, a similar instrument is described as “French, last third 19th c, unsigned.” on page 25 of Catalog 123, Spring, 1982 from Historical Technology, Inc. Marblehead, MA. Another microscope of the same design and size, but with rackwork focusing, is found as item 232 in Gerard L’E Turner’s The Great Age of the Microscope—The Collection of the Royal Microscopical Society through 150 Years, Adam Hilger. Bristol. (1989). It is listed as 4/4 19th century, French, and described as “Compound Microscope, Toy.” Another, apparently identical, toy microscope in ONLINE MICROSCOPES, a virtual museum of the Moody Medical Library, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, is described as: “1.058 French Toy Microscope—This unsigned, brass microscope sits on a circular base (lead-filled). The round pillar supports the body-tube in a slit sleeve, the stage, and the swinging double mirror. Focusing is accomplished by moving the draw-tube. A similar instrument is found in the collection of the Royal Microscopical Society, and Gerard Turner maintains that it is of French origin. No case or accessories. Late 19th century.”