Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

Microscope 446 (Carl Zeiss; binocular stand XB; c. 1912)

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. Microscope 446 is engraved on the binocular head with “CARL ZEISS, JENA”, the serial number 54348, and should be dated to c. 1912. This instrument corresponds to the Zeiss’s binocular stand XB (Figure 1). The microscope is also engraved on the base and binocular head with the inscription “BRIT. MUS. N.H., Z.D.5”, suggesting that this instrument belonged to the British Museum in London at some point in history. The original wooden box of the instrument is also engraved with “Mr. Robson’s R^m., 5”, potentially associating this instrument with Guy Coburn Robson (1888 – 1945), who was a British zoologist, specializing in Mollusca, who first named and described Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the colossal squid. Robson studied at the marine biological station in Naples, and joined the staff of the Natural History Museum in 1911, becoming Deputy Keeper of the Zoology Department from 1931 to 1936. Robson is also best known for his major co-authored book The Variations of Animals in Nature (1936), which argued that although the fact of evolution is well established, the mechanisms are largely hypothetical and undemonstrated.

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

Figure 1. Carl Zeiss’s binocular stand XB as featured in a 1914 catalogue of Arthur Thomas.