Olympus FL PL 100 HI 1.30

[Jeffenuva]

I haven't used a microscope since college (dissecting yeast tetrads...) but was fortunate enough to acquire an old Olympus Vanox with several objectives when a local Q&A lab shut down.

I am trying to figure out what it's all worth, and am having trouble with this objective. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

-Jeff

[PeteM]

It's likely to be a decent lens (even the regular Olympus plan achromats from that era with the same 1.3 NA are OK). However, the old short barrel Olympus objectives don't typically fetch high dollar. If you want a fair value, best bet is to accurately describe it and sell it on Ebay. I'd guess $50.

Did the scope come with fluorescence (now somewhat obsolete) and/or phase contrast (still good images)??

The old Vanox (first model, not the one with all sorts of built-in 35mm photo wizardry) can be made into a very nice stand if you have room for it. You could easily fit it up for digital photography and find it relatively immune to minor shakes (it weighs around 60 pounds). There's enough movement in the stage to accommodate long barrel lenses. The illumination system, while dated, is adequate for normal microscopy. And the trinocular head is just fine, just a bit smaller field of view than later BH2 models. The whole thing is kind of cool, as well. Not as iconic as the Zeiss Universal it competed with, but in the same ballpark.

Are you planning to use it or sell it? If the former, it could be a very fine scope -- especially for digital photography. If the latter, it's likely to look like a lot more $$$ (it's beautifully made) than it will bring on the used market, since much smaller scopes (say an Olympus BH, CH or CH2) can have the same optics for not much money.

[Hobbyst46]

This is a ~36mm focal length (short barrel), phase contrast, fluorite achromat glass objective, 100X oil immersion. Standard objectives for the Vanox were short barrel.
The standard illumination as far as I recall was a 30W incandescent lamp. The scope belongs to the 1970's era. I would check whether the focusing mechanism works smoothly - when left unused and the grease dried, it becomes difficult to maintain, since the scope is so heavy.

[Jeffenuva]

Thank you for the feedback!

A bit more information, since you were kind enough to reply:

The lab closed several years ago - there is now a trendy restaurant and shopping area there. I enjoyed microscopy in college and imagined that it might get some use, but the kids and I haven't used it much - primarily because of it's excessive bulk and complexity.

It came with phase contrast. The head holds 5 objectives. It came with 9 objectives.

The coarse focus was very stiff, but I took it to Leeds (http://www.leedsmicro.com) and paid them about $100 to fix it a couple years ago.

Because it has been sitting around under plastic taking up space, I think the time has come to sell it, which I why I was trying to get a better understanding of the objective values. Most them I could find examples of on Ebay, but this one I could not.

Thank you!

-Jeff