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Microscope Museum Collection of antique microscopes and other
scientific instruments |
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Microslide projector from Charles
Baker, London (late 1930s)
This item is a school micro-projector apparatus, model A, from Charles
Baker, London, and should be dated to the late 1930s (Figure 1). The Charles
Baker micro-projector was used mostly in schools and was designed to project
magnified images of microscopical specimens. The instrument features a small,
horizontal, compound microscope (based on the Baker’s improved nature
microscope) mounted with a projection lamp on a kidney-shaped iron base. The
micro-projector could be sold with or without AC or DC transformers to power
the lamp. Magnification is controlled by sliding the drawtube of the
instrument, which is engraved with numbers corresponding to magnifying
powers. The instrument is signed "Baker, London" and is numbered
11582. 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.
Figure 1. Baker’s school micro-projector apparatus,
model A, as illustrated in the 11th edition of the Gallenkamp
general catalogue (1939). References Baker
Microslide Projector (https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/museum/bakermicroslide1947.html), latest accessed on
12.12.2020 Magnification
is controlled by sliding the drawtube of the instrument, which is engraved
with numbers corresponding to magnifying powers (https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/collections/imu-search-page/record-details/?TitInventoryNo=10701&querytype=field&thumbnails=on&irn=16811), latest accessed on
12.12.2020 LAST
EDITED: 26.01.2021 |
