Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

Microscope 256 (Charles Baker; aplanatic or platyscopic dissecting lens; c. 1900)

The business of Baker was founded in London in about 1765, Charles Baker, who was born in 1820, giving his name to the company from about 1851. When Charles Baker died in 1894 the firm continued under the same name but run by the Curties family until it became, in 1936, Charles Baker & Co. and subsequently, sometime in the 1940s, C. Baker Ltd. The firm’s address mostly given as 244 High Holborn, London (but sometimes 243 and 245, sometimes in combination). The firm produced optical and surgical instruments. In 1963, Vickers acquired the C Baker Ltd microscope factory and a new company called Vickers Instruments was formed. Microscope 256 is signed with ‘C BAKER, London’ and ‘x20’, and should be a version of a Baker’s aplanatic or platyscopic dissecting lens (Figure 1). These lenses were described as “... consisting of three lenses cemented together and giving a very large and flat field with excellent definition and long working distance”. The instrument should be dated to c. 1900.

Figure 1. Baker’s aplanatic or platyscopic dissecting lens as engraved in a 1911 catalogue of the firm

References

Charles Baker (https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Charles_Baker), last accessed on 12.08.2020

LAST EDITED: 02.10.2022