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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 |
