Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 390 (Charles Baker; Greenough binocular microscope; 1950s)

 

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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 390 is engraved with “C. BAKER, LONDON”, the serial number B0808 and should be dated to the 1950s. This instrument was described as a Baker’s Greenough binocular microscope with built-in illumination in a 1956 catalogue of Gallenkamp (Figure 1).

Note: this instrument was kindly donated by Dave Levell (Pembrokeshire, Wales) in May 2023.

 

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Figure 1. Baker’s Greenough binocular microscope with built-in illumination as featured in a 1956 catalogue of Gallenkamp.