Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

Microscope 209 (C. Baker; microscope series 4, 1950s)

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 209 is signed with C. Baker (London) and has the serial number 1308, being dated to the 1950s. The microscope came with its original wooden box and with a binocular and a monocular head. This microscope was featured in a 1963 Flatters and Garnett’s catalogue as a Baker series 4 (Figure 1). It was described as a “robust-built research stand capable of easy adaptation to a wide range of uses”. Figure 2 shows two Baker’s model 4 microscopes as engraved in a 1956 catalogue of Gallenkamp.

Figure 1. Baker’s series 4 microscope as featured in the 1963 Flatters and Garnett’s catalogue

Figure 2. Baker’s series 4 microscopes as featured in the 1956 Gallenkamp’s catalogue