C Reichert (Vienna, Austria)

Carl Reichert (1851 – 1922) was an optician who established one of the principal microscope manufacturing firms in Europe in the late 19th century. Reichert married into the Leitz family in 1874 (and was son in law of Ernst Leitz). In 1876 in Vienna, he founded the Optische Werke C. Reichert. He employed some Leitz technicians, explaining one reason why his products were so similar to those of Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar. Reichert designed new lenses, lighting equipment for microscopes, and one of the first microscopes for the study of metal surfaces. By 1900, the company had produced 30,000 microscopes, and 100,000 microscopes in 1930. Instruments were usually signed "C. Reichert, Wien". The firm was partially sold to American Optical in 1962, which was taken over in 1968 by Warner Lambert. By 1986, this company merged with Jung of Heidelberg and was sold to Cambridge Instruments, which in 1990 merged with Wild Leitz to form the Leica Group. In 1999 Reichert stopped microscope production, concentrating to instruments for sample preparations for transmission electron microscopy.

* Instrument kindly donated by Dave Levell (Pembrokeshire, Wales) in May 2023

Carl Schutz (Cassel, Germany)

The Schutz company was originally founded c. 1900 in Cassel, by Carl Schutz, and specialised in binoculars, microscopes and telescopes. The name was changed in 1912 from Carl Schutz & Co to Carl Schutz Optische Werke AG. In the mid 1920s the company merged with Ruf & Co to create Schutz Ruf & Co. Cassel (the spelling of which was changed to Kassel in 1926).

Carl Zeiss (Jena, Germany)

In 1846, Carl Zeiss opened a workshop for precision mechanics and optical instruments in Jena. He focused his activities more and more on microscope production. Soon he was supplying not only the regional market but also shipping his wares around the world. In 1866, Carl Zeiss recruited the physicist Ernst Abbe to help him improve his microscopes. In 1877, Ernst Abbe became a partner in the company. After the passing of Carl Zeiss in 1889, Ernst Abbe created the Carl Zeiss Foundation, which would become the company’s sole owner. Since the 1890s, Abbe’s findings and his style of working have also been adopted in other fields of optics. This led to the creation of all-new products, new business areas and rapid growth for the company. In 1893, the first subsidiary was opened in London. Before the outbreak of WWI, sites were established across the world, which then had to be closed when war broke out. There were more ups and downs between then and 1945. Thereafter, the sites outside Germany have been developing in a stable manner and today, Carl Zeiss AG is a holding company with several subsidiaries. In addition to its sites in Oberkochen and Jena, its main production sites are in Wetzlar and Göttingen in Germany, Dublin and Minneapolis in the US, and Shanghai in China.

* Instrument kindly donated by Dave Levell (Pembrokeshire, Wales) in May 2023

Ernst Leitz (Wetzlar, Germany)

In 1849, Karl Kellner founded the Optical Institute in Wetzlar, Germany, which in a few years had microscopes as the main product. The company hired an engineer named Ernst Leitz in 1865, who soon became a partner. Leitz took over the company in 1869 and renamed it Optical Institute of Ernst Leitz. Ernst Leitz died in 1920, and his son Ernst Leitz II became the sole owner of the business. During the 1970s, competition increased from several companies in Japan, especially Olympus and Nikon, which were producing modern microscope designs of excellent quality at relatively low prices. Several venerable microscope companies closed, merged, or were bought out in Europe and the USA. Wild Heerbrugg bought the majority ownership of the Leitz Wetzlar company in 1974, but Leitz continued to develop their new lines of compound microscopes. The last member of the Leitz family retired from the board of directors in 1986. At the beginning of 1987, Ernst Leitz Wetzlar GmbH and Wild Heerbrugg AG merged to form the Wild Leitz Group. The Wild Leitz Group was broken into smaller companies in 1988, and Leica Camera was split off. The merger of Wild Leitz Holding AG with the Cambridge Instrument Company in 1990 created the new Leica Holding B.V. group. The Leica name is now used for all microscopes and other scientific optical instruments.

* Instrument kindly donated by Dave Levell (Pembrokeshire, Wales) in May 2023

** item kindly donated by Ian Maplesden (Brighton, England) in March 2025

Emil Busch (Rathenow, Germany)

Johann Heinrich August Duncker (1767 - 1843) began is optical instruments business in Rathenow, Germany, in 1792. Rathenow is known for its Rathenow stones, bricks made of the clay of the Havel, and for its spectacles and optical instruments. Important early products were lenses for microscopes, magnifying glasses and glasses as well as astronomical telescopes and microscopes. Duncker's son Eduard (1797 - 1878) took over the company in 1819 and, in 1845, he passed the business on to his nephew Emil Busch (1820 - 1888) as Optische Industrie-Anstalt, Rathenow. In 1872, the business became Emil Busch AG. The company was renamed Emil Busch AG Optische Industrie in 1908. Around that time, many Busch products were labelled ROJA (Rathanower Optische Institute). Zeiss became a majority shareholder in 1929, and Busch ceased making lenses. The company became the state-owned Rathenower Optische Werke GmbH in 1946 and, from 1948, VEB Rathenower Optische Werke (ROW), later becoming part of VEB Carl Zeiss Jena.

F W Schieck (Berlin, Germany)

Friedrich Wilhelm Schieck (1790 – 1870; also, at times, spelled Schiek) was the first member of his family to produce scientific instruments. After serving an apprenticeship, he moved to Berlin where he worked with Carl Philipp Heinrich Pistor (1778 - 1847). By 1824, he was a full partner with Pistor. At that time, instruments were signed Pistor & Schiek. By 1837, the partners separated and Schiek began to produce instruments under his own name; the microscopes were usually marked “Schiek in Berlin”. Beginning around 1860, the father began to work with his son, Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann Schieck, who by 1865 assumed full management of the firm under the name F. W. Schieck Optisches Institut. The elder Schieck died in 1870. The son died in 1916, but the firm continued well into the 20th century. F.W. Schiek produced high quality research microscopes until 1865, when the business was taken over by his son. Once the younger 'Schieck' took over he changed the focus of the firm to higher volume and more basic microscopes. Like several other German makers of the time, he especially sold microscopes for meat inspection (trichinoscopes).

Frieseke & Hoepfner (Erlangen, Germany)

Frieseke & Hoepfner was founded in 1939, in Erlangen (Germany) with the purpose of producing aeronautical equipment. In 1945, the factory in Erlangen was used by the Americans to repair and construct military vehicles. The company restarted in 1948 producing hydraulics and control equipment and, in 1955, started its integration in the FAG group in Schweinfurt. It is unclear when Frieseke & Hoepfner decided to venture into microscope production and, although the high quality of their microscopes, most probably this branch of the business did not prosper as very few of their microscopes are known.

Otto Himmler (Berlin, Germany)

Karl Otto Himmler was born in 1841 and was son of Karl Himmler, a shoemaker. Karl Otto Himmler worked for Ernst Gundlach in Berlin, and later for Wilhelm and Heinrich Seibert in Wetzlar, before establishing his own firm named Himmler & Barthning in Berlin in 1877. After a few years the company was just Otto Himmler, and manufactured microscopes and their accessories, and equipment for microphotography and projection. Himmler made also the first contact lenses to correct high myopia, after an order from August Muller in 1889. Karl Otto Himmler died at the age of 61 years, in 1903. Himmler’s firm traded from Simeonstrasse 27 (1879 – 1886), Brandenburgstrasse 9 (1887 – 1903) and Oranienburgerstrasse 65 N24 (1904 – 1943; the move to this address took place almost one year after Himmler’s death and his widow, Alwine Himmler, was listed as owner of the firm).

Paul Waechter (Wetzlar, Germany)

Paul Waechter (1847 - 1893) was trained to be an optician and mechanic at the famous Zeiss Optical Workshop in Jena, Germany. In 1872, Waechter founded his own optical workshop and his earlier instruments were signed ‘Paul Waechter, Berlin’. Between 1872 and 1892, Waechter produced over 20,000 microscopes, mostly for the examination of trichinae in meat. By 1890, Paul Waechter moved his workshop to Friedenau and the microscopes produced were then signed ‘Paul Waechter, Friedenau’. After the death of Waechter in 1893, his longtime assistant, Herr Puchler, directed the company. Later, Puchler and another master mechanic, Paul Prasser, formed a partnership and continued the business into the early 20th century. At this time, the business was named ‘Optische Werkstaette Paul Waechter’. Microscopes produced by the company often did not bear a signature or serial number on the microscope itself, but these items were reserved for the wood case that normally accompanied the instrument. Sometime after the turn of the century, the firm was moved from Berlin to Potsdam in the former German State of Prussia (now Poland). At that time, instruments were signed ‘Paul Waechter, Potsdam’. By the mid-1930s the business was taken over by the Pridat family. Operations of the firm appear to have been suspended during and immediately after the Second World War. In 1958, the company again reappeared when their registered office moved to Wetzlar, Germany. Microscopes produced in the 1960s and 1970s were signed ‘P. Waechter, Wetzlar’.

R Fuess (Berlin, Germany)

Rudolph Fuess was an instrument maker from Hanover, Germany. In 1860, Rudolf moved to Hamburg and started a company four years later, producing microscopes and other scientific instruments. Rudolf was one of the founders of the Imperial Physical and Technical Institute in 1881. He bought the glass manufacturer Greiner & Geissler in 1877, expanding the range of his products, and built a factory in Berlin (Steglitz) in 1891. Rudolf’s son Paul Fuess took over running the company in 1913. In 1932, the company opened an American office in New York City under the name of R. Fuess, Inc. In 1936, another branch was opened in Potsdam (this branch principally made aviation instruments). Work came to a standstill with the defeat of Germany in World War II and the partition of the country, but production resumed in 1948 or 1949. The firm was dissolved in 1976.

* Instrument kindly donated by Dave Levell (Pembrokeshire, Wales) in May 2023

R Winkel (Gottingen, Germany)

Rudolf Winkel started his microscope manufacturing company in 1857 in Gottingen, Germany. In 1858, he took F. G. Voigt as an apprentice, who later also started the firm Voigt & Hochgesang (in 1869). By 1880, Rudolf’s three sons were working in the company. After Rudolf’s death in 1905, the sons continued with the company, expanded the product range, and started mass production. By 1911, Carl Zeiss was a major shareholder of Winkel, and the company was incorporated as R. Winkel GmbH. In 1957, the company became part of the Carl Zeiss Foundation.

* Instrument kindly donated by Dave Levell (Pembrokeshire, Wales) in May 2023

Steindorff & Co (Berlin, Germany)

The mechanic Emil Steindorff started producing scientific instruments on Reichenberger Straße, Berlin in 1879. In 1915, Otto and Emil Steindorff are both owners of the company. Otto Steindorff was a mechanic as well. In 1925, the company’s head office was located on Lindenstraße, Berlin. The firm was named Steindorff & Co. Possibly, the future owner Julius Kaiser joined the firm at that time. Two years later, the firm traded under the name ‘Optisch Mechanische Fabrik Steindorff & Co’.  Since then, the firm’s head office was located on Köpenicker Straße, Berlin. In 1951, a firm named ‘Steindorff of America Inc’ was founded in the USA to distribute their microscopes in that country. The company celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1954 with 80 staff members. The factory was then located at Paul-Lincke-Ufer, Berlin. In the 1980’s, the firm was named ‘Optisch Mechanische Fabrik Steindorff & Co GmbH’, and finally goes bankrupt in 1986.

W & H Seibert (Wetzlar, Germany)

Wilhelm and Heinrich Seibert were brothers who worked for Carl Kellner’s optical business in the 1850s, in Wetzlar, together with Ernst Gundlach. In 1859, Gundlach started his own microscope manufacturing firm, and the Seibert brothers also joined this company as employees. This company entered in debt and Gundlach left for England in 1860. Later, in 1865, Gundlach returned and, this time in Berlin, he started a new optical firm to which the Seibert brothers also joined in about 1866. In 1872, the Seibert brothers joined Georg Krafft and bought the firm from Gundlach, and he emigrated to the USA. The firm moved to Wetzlar and was initially named Seibert & Krafft (1871 – 1884). In 1884, the firm changed the name to W & H Seibert and operated until c. 1925.