Scientific Instruments

Although the French inventor Charles-Xavier Thomas de Colmar introduced the first model of his calculating machine Arithmomètre in 1820, he waited some 30 years before he started producing them in series.

The Antique Scientific Instruments Fair ran for 30-plus years but sadly is no more, with its last outing taking place under the banner of the Scientific Instrument Society held as part of the Antique Arms Fair in London in September 2019.

A group of early 19th century microscope slides mounted with specimens of fossilised wood sold for £11,500 (estimate £1000-1500) to a Canadian private collector at Special Auction Services (25% buyer’s premium) in Newbury.

A rare 17th century elephant automaton clock was the star of the Christie’s New York Exceptional sale when it sold at $2.15m (£1.58m) to a private buyer.

If you are a birdwatcher, you need a good pair of binoculars.

Theodolite and telescope made to high standards measure up in two salerooms

Surviving records for the London instrument maker Smith & Beck state this superb microscope from the brass and glass era was purchased on September 2, 1853, by Francis Herbert Wenham (1824-1908) – the British engineer who became a key figure in the improvement of the microscope.

The invention of the gauger’s slide rule in the 1680s is generally credited to one Thomas Everard of Southampton.

Mehlis (23% buyer’s premium) in Plauen held its first sale of the new season on August 28-29. There was lively bidding, with a high proportion of the bidders joining in by phone.

Though the first human in-socket artificial eyes were created by Venetian glassmakers c.16th century, the earliest evidence of ocular prosthesis was found in a female burial plot in Shahr-I Sokhta, Iran – dating back to 2900-2800 BC.

Fine examples lead an array of scientific instruments and photographica at specialist sale

The Wimshurst influence machine, an electrostatic generator capable of creating high voltages, was developed between 1880-83 by British inventor James Wimshurst (1832-1903).

Scientific instruments and photographica specialist Flints Auctions has opened new premises and is launching a fresh type of sale.

The opening lot of Flints Auctions’ photographica and scientific instruments sale in Reading on October 18 was an exceptional Victorian microscope.

Dealer Peter Delehar brings an example of a pioneering protractor to the second edition of the Antique Scientific Instrument Fair.

By the 1980s, Thomas Mercer of St Albans had made almost a third of all chronometers in history – including that used by Ernest Shackleton to navigate his men to Elephant Island and eventual rescue during the Trans-Arctic Expedition of 1914.

During an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic in 1996, a marine chronometer made by JW Ray, Liverpool, was recovered and brought ashore.