IOR 486-81 stereomicroscope

[Farmazon]

Hi guys.

Been meaning to show you my new (to me) stereomicroscope and wrote a long(ish) article, but lost it so i'm gonna keep this short.
It's the best stereomicroscope you've never heard of.
Sure, it's rare like hen's teeth, so i didn't technically lie.
This is the IOR NTI 486-81. Afaik "NTI" is something like "model number" and i guess 81 is the first model year. For those of you who don't know, IOR stands for "Intreprinderea Optica Romana" - Romanian Optical Enterprise, based in the capital of Bucharest. It used to do all sorts of nifty stuff behind the iron curtain, now...not so much.

So, it is an Greenough type with provisions for incident and transverse illumination. It came with a set of 3 objectives (0.63x, 1x, 1.6x) and 3 pairs of oculars (10x WF, 16x, 32x). A 10x measuring graticule is provided. The head itself is 0.8x. The head is reversible on the stand. The stand features a mirror and mounting holes for the illuminator in order to provide transverse illumination (no condenser, of course). The stage glides on grease. The center is removable for transverse illumination. The illuminator itself can provide either direct incident illumination, and also comes equipped with a mirror head for transverse.

The image quality is pretty good across the board (but then again, i only had my old Meopta for comparison and there is no contest. The image is darker but much more sharp and aberration-free than the Meopta. It is much yellower though.
The construction seems solid and well finished. Hopefully it will last a while.

Cheers!

[Scarodactyl]

That's a beautiful scope! It has a surprisingly modern look, almost like early 2000s leica but not ugly.

[MichaelG.]

That’s quite something ... it all looks very well thought-out.

I especially like the stage !!

MichaelG.

[MicroBob]

That again is a very inpressive and rare microscope, thank you for showing!
The column look faintly similar to Olympus or Leitz Großfeld TS but apart from this it seems to be a completely individual and well thought out. It really would be interesting to talk to somebody who was part of the development and production team that made thede fine instruents under so special circumstances.

I know how it feels when a well formulated text gets lost. Perhaps you find the energy later to write up what you have on this instrument and post it here.

Bob

[apochronaut]

I remain quite fascinated by the IOR products. I have known about them for quite some time, courtesy of having had a Romanian national work on my farm in the summer of 1991. He had obtained a masters in diseases of the vine and managed a vineyard near to Alba Julia. He had used them and described them in some detail. What he was doing in the Canadian farm training program that he had signed up for was a bit of a mystery but I guess it made for a decent free summer holiday here. I have also had some communication with Lucien P.
They have always been described to me as being from a system of semi- contract to Jena. Do you know if this is actually true and if so in what manner? The design seems quite unique. I like how the inclination takes place very low and the method of widening the eyepieces.
It is interesting how each of the former iron curtain countries had their own domestic production. East Ger rrmany, and Poland both exported, Jena quite a lot but I would guess IOR not but if however if you wanted a microscope in Romania, that was your choice I guess, so it was a bit of a captive market. Bulgaria and Yugoslavia both had companies too. I think they too were for domestic use only or mostly. I used to know their names but I would have todig in my files to find them now. Meopta was somewhat unique because although their microscopes were little found outside of Czechoslovakia, they had a unique market niche in cinema equipment, so the name is widely known for projectors. Only Hungary seems not to have had an optical firm or maybe I just don't know of it.

[MicroBob]

Hi Phil,
I can't see any resemblance to Zeiss Jena instruments to prove a possible connection. For products for a tiny local market the IOR instruments are very individual and apparently highly developed. My idea of instruments for a tiny selfsufficient market would be basic routine work instruments, not research grade stuff. Very interesting and nice that Farmazon shows them here in this detail.

Bob

[apochronaut]

The population of Romania was over 20 million in 1990. Part of the ideals entrenched in the so called eastern bloc was self sufficiency, so there was a good chance that in Romania, IOR was called upon to be the optical supply source, with few exceptions the only optical supply source. I remember well my days with Vali( my Romanian viticulturist friend) and what he told me about Romania. In Romania, you had a choice of 2 types of washing machines. If you could afford and wanted a car, with the exception of certain of those in power , it would be a Dacia, one of several Romanian made Renaults under license. Romania had over 2 million acres of grapes. An agricultural plan was instituted, at some point to remove grape vines in areas where wheat could be grown well and plant grain. Yet; there was no heat or electricity on the trains , when it plunged to -27 C. in 1985. It was a planned economy but it seems not everything was planned.

The IOR product line I have seen, it is true are unique . Where Jena may have come in might be the manufacture of the lenses, which may have been designed in Romania but ground in Jena. PZO, with an optic plant and a work force of over 700 did export some but not here to Canada or even to the Soviet Union, I have been told. It's possible that with a domestic market only, IOR could not justify maintaining an optic plant and turned the lens production over to a friendly partner.

Steindorff was too small to justify making lenses. They employed a mathematician who provided the specs, to a factory that specialized in optic manufacture only; likely Seibert. This is probably a more common practice than is obvious.