Imported Double Pillar French microscope. c.1875

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

This student-type microscope was imported from France. Located inside the case is an importer’s label "Thomas Hall, 19 Bromfield St., Boston, Mass". Additionally, the case contains a handwritten magnification chart.

The microscope is constructed primarily of brass, with a bronzed iron base. It features rack-and-pinion focusing and a triple-button objective that can be separated for power adjustment. Other components include a stage condenser, a lyre-shaped stage clip, an aperture wheel beneath the stage, and both plane and concave mirrors for illumination. Height can be extended by draw-tube.

A similar microscope is shown in the Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue and Price-List of Optical Meteorological, Mathematical, and Engineering Instruments. Manufactured and Imported by James Prentice & Son, 176 Broadway, New York (no date). The microscope in the illustration has both a course focus by rack and pinion and a fine focus utilizing a micrometer screw located at the back of the column.

Double pillar French microscope

Evidently, this type of microscope was produced in at least three variants: the model shown on this page, the version depicted in the illustration above, and a third, an example in this collection, having a fine focus adjustment with the course focusing by sliding tube. There are size differences between these models.

The image below compares the two in this collection:

Imported Double Pillar French microscope

While the microscopes shown here are unsigned, a number of examples of these types of microscope are known with different signatures as follows:

Radiguet & Fils, Optns 15Bd des Filles du Calvarie, Paris

Radiguet et Massiot, 15 Bld des Filles du Calvaire a Paris

Maison de L'ingr. Chevallier, Optn, Pont Neuf 15, Paris

J. Bianchetti, Marseilles

Doninelli, Nice

It is not clear which, if any, of these firms manufactured these microscopes. The fact that these microscopes were exported and also sold by many different French firms suggests that they were made for the trade.

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