Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 95 (Burke & Jones; Culpeper-type microscope reproduction made in the 1970s)

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Burke & Jones were manufacturers of reproductions of antique scientific instruments based at Bristol. Not much information is available about this company, which looks to have ceased trading in the early 1980s. Microscope 95 is a replica of an antique Culpeper-type brass microscope by Burke & Jones, Bristol (No 136; production of 600), originally sold by the British National Pharmaceutical Association in the 1970's as a limited edition. The three scrolled legs support the body and circular stage. There is coarse focus only, by moving the inner tube up and down in the body tube. There are two unmarked objectives that screw into the end of a long nosepiece, mounted on the bottom end of the inner tube. The two lens Huygenian-type eyepiece screws into the top end of the inner tube. Illumination is by a concave mirror, attached to the centre of the wood base. There is also a bull’s eye lens that mounts on a hole in the stage. There is a fish plate and a probe that mount in holes on the stage. It comes with a pyramidal mahogany carrying case. Edmund Culpeper (c. 1670 – 1738) invented the original tripod compound microscope sometime between 1725 and 1730.

 

References

BRASS CULPEPER-TYPE MICROSCOPE (https://www.microscope-antiques.com/adamsculp.html), last accessed on 14.08.2020

Culpeper-Style Microscope (http://fp.optics.arizona.edu/antiques/Microscope/Calalogue/M05/M05.htm), last accessed on 14.08.2020

 

LAST EDITED: 15.08.2020