1940s(?) Spencer model identification help
Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2020 3:11 am
Hello, I am a young beginner and know absolutely nothing about microscopes besides high school biology basics... and it's been a few years since then. I am currently trying to get into microbiology. My father at some point purchased a vintage AO/Spencer "Buffalo" brand microscope originally purchased for a medical facility. I'd like to identify it and hopefully get it functioning.
Despite it coming with an original certificate of purchase with the catalog and serial numbers written on it, and an original customer receipt with a date, I can't figure out what model it is and why some of the parts don't look like the other similar models I have seen. I tried researching on my own but I don't know enough about microscopes yet, so getting some info about what I have from people who actually know what they're looking at and have some understanding of vintage microscopes would be very helpful.
The closest model I could find matches nearly every part as far as I can tell, except the arm (I barely know the part terminology, sorry if I'm using the wrong words). Most noticeably, there is only one spinning dial (focus?) on the arm right next to the eyepiece parts on my model, but on all the other models I saw that are like this there are 2...?
Here is a collection of photos I took of the microscope and associated accessories hosted on Imgur.
There are various items that came with it from different brands but most of the items are from the same medical supplier, including an instruction manual for microscopy from 1912 titled "Use and Care of the Microscope" by Edward Bausch, copyright Bausch & Lomb Optical Co.? It is basically incomprehensible to me and there are a lot of pages, but if anyone would like to see them I can upload more photos. I just didn't think it would be helpful for identifying the microscope as it's a different brand from the microscope, so I didn't bother including anything besides the covers and inside pages within the image collection I uploaded in the link above.
/,,,DETAILS,,,/
Catalog no.: 3LSH
Serial no.: 181319
Date on receipt (from Shaw Supply Co., medical supplier): 01/16/1946
- The mirror has a flat side and a concave side.
- The aperture(???) goes from .1 to 1.25.
- There are 3 lenses on a "locking" turret(???), with 16, 4, and 1.8 lenses.
- There are 2 sets of the magnification things that slide into the eyepieces, one 6x set and one 10x set.
- I'm guessing it weighs about 15 pounds but I'm bad at judging weight and don't own a scale.
I don't really know what other details I should provide, please let me know. Does it look familiar to anyone? Thanks for your time!
Despite it coming with an original certificate of purchase with the catalog and serial numbers written on it, and an original customer receipt with a date, I can't figure out what model it is and why some of the parts don't look like the other similar models I have seen. I tried researching on my own but I don't know enough about microscopes yet, so getting some info about what I have from people who actually know what they're looking at and have some understanding of vintage microscopes would be very helpful.
The closest model I could find matches nearly every part as far as I can tell, except the arm (I barely know the part terminology, sorry if I'm using the wrong words). Most noticeably, there is only one spinning dial (focus?) on the arm right next to the eyepiece parts on my model, but on all the other models I saw that are like this there are 2...?
Here is a collection of photos I took of the microscope and associated accessories hosted on Imgur.
There are various items that came with it from different brands but most of the items are from the same medical supplier, including an instruction manual for microscopy from 1912 titled "Use and Care of the Microscope" by Edward Bausch, copyright Bausch & Lomb Optical Co.? It is basically incomprehensible to me and there are a lot of pages, but if anyone would like to see them I can upload more photos. I just didn't think it would be helpful for identifying the microscope as it's a different brand from the microscope, so I didn't bother including anything besides the covers and inside pages within the image collection I uploaded in the link above.
/,,,DETAILS,,,/
Catalog no.: 3LSH
Serial no.: 181319
Date on receipt (from Shaw Supply Co., medical supplier): 01/16/1946
- The mirror has a flat side and a concave side.
- The aperture(???) goes from .1 to 1.25.
- There are 3 lenses on a "locking" turret(???), with 16, 4, and 1.8 lenses.
- There are 2 sets of the magnification things that slide into the eyepieces, one 6x set and one 10x set.
- I'm guessing it weighs about 15 pounds but I'm bad at judging weight and don't own a scale.
I don't really know what other details I should provide, please let me know. Does it look familiar to anyone? Thanks for your time!