Spencer Buffalo Stereo Microscope

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Sphaerotilus
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2021 2:48 pm

Spencer Buffalo Stereo Microscope

#1 Post by Sphaerotilus » Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:28 pm

I this is the youngest vintage microscope in my collection, a circa 1932 Spencer Buffalo Stereo Microscope, possibly model 55. Still researching it. It was used for many years in a food plant microbiology quality control lab. After giving it a major cleaning, I was delighted to find it was in reasonable working order.



ImageVintage Microscope (2) by Jared Fein, on Flickr


ImageVintage Microscope (1) by Jared Fein, on Flickr
Last edited by Sphaerotilus on Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BramHuntingNematodes
Posts: 1538
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:29 am
Location: Georgia, USA

Re: Spencer Buffalo Stereo Microscope

#2 Post by BramHuntingNematodes » Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:50 pm

Hard to beat that era of Spencer styling.
1942 Bausch and Lomb Series T Dynoptic, Custom Illumination

apochronaut
Posts: 6269
Joined: Fri May 15, 2015 12:15 am

Re: Spencer Buffalo Stereo Microscope

#3 Post by apochronaut » Mon Jun 07, 2021 1:31 am

There were various permutations on that stand. I have had mostly the version with the articulating arm, a kind of quasi boom stand. One of the neat applications is to rotate the column to horizontal. Formatted in such a way those scopes make a good low power microscope for l.w.d. viewing through an aquarium wall . They also produced a water immersion objective pair for it.

The stereo microscopes with the 23.2mm eyepieces were the student scopes. Spencer, also had a line with very large eyepieces around 1 5/8" , which gave wide stereo fields.
By the end of the war they had obtained as wide fields with 23.2 mm ocular tubes and those big eyepieces were discontinued, as were the student scopes, in favour of the 23-28 series.

Sphaerotilus
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2021 2:48 pm

Re: Spencer Buffalo Stereo Microscope

#4 Post by Sphaerotilus » Mon Jun 07, 2021 6:24 pm

Thanks for the additional info. This microscope was built like a tank and judging how I found it, was up to the challenge. It was used in a fish packing plant in their microbiology test lab for many years, well before when I acquired it. A lot of the construction appears to be brass which unfortunately was painted black at the time of manufacture.

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