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Microscope Museum Collection of antique microscopes and other
scientific instruments |
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Microscope
234 (assigned
to C Collins; binocular microscope; c. 1870)
Charles Collins produced
microscopes and other optical apparatus from 1863 until the early 1900s. The census
of spring, 1861, listed the 23-year-old Charles as an optician, living with
his parents in Croydon, Surrey. Collins appears to have opened his
independent retail shop and factory in 1863 in downtown London, and joined
the Quekett Microscopical Club in 1865, and the Royal Microscopical Society
in 1866. Hogg’s sixth edition of The Microscope, in 1867, featured
several of Charles Collins’ instruments, including a binocular student’s
microscope and the Bockett lamp. Later, monocular versions of the student’s
microscope were also manufactured. At the beginning of 1871, Charles moved
his retail shop to Great Portland Street, about a two-minute walk from his
former store. Charles Collins’ business shows signs of decline by the early
1890s. The 1911 census recorded Charles Collins as being an “optician,
sight testing, spectacles”, suggesting that his business at that time had
primarily been reduced to fitting eyeglasses. Microscope 234 is not signed
but is potentially a version of the Charles Collin’s student five-guinea
binocular microscope and should be dated to c. 1870 (Figure 1). These student
binocular microscopes from Collins were described in Hoggs’ books from about
1867 to 1871 (later editions of Hoggs’ books described updated versions of
Collin’s student microscopes). The objective thread is pre-RMS standards. The
instrument has an Alfred White lever type stage and a simple wheel of
apertures substage condenser. The design of the White-type lever stage was
first described in 1844 in the Transactions of the Microscopical Society, and
the movement of the stage is controlled from above it. The accessories of the
microscope include a bullseye condenser and three unmarked objective lenses
in canisters. The Wenham prism is present, but it is not the original to this
instrument. The instrument came with its original wooden box, which is also
similar to the boxes of other Collin’s microscopes.
Figure
1.
Charles Collin’s student five-guinea binocular microscope as engraved in
Jabez Hogg (1867) The microscope: its history, construction and application
(6th Edition). References Charles
Collins, senior, 1837 – ca. 1915 (http://microscopist.net/CollinsCsr.html),
last accessed on 14.08.2020 LAST
EDITED: 15.03.2022 |
