Scientific Instruments

This original case of five silver catheters and three urethral sounds marked for the London maker J Millikan might be a strange offering as a prize outside medical circles.

Cameras, scientific and medical instruments specialist Flints (20% buyer’s premium) held its inaugural sale on September 21.

Enhancing a growing reputation at Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) for optical instruments, a recent sale included 18 lots of binoculars and the like.

Pieces with a maritime slant proved popular at the sale at Cowes held by HRD Auction Rooms (15% buyer’s premium) on August 3 during the yacht-fest that is Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight.

Thomaston Place Auction Galleries of Maine is holding its annual summer sale, a three-day offering of more than 1500 lots covering a huge variety of different categories.

Triple lens or Triunial magic lanterns were the iPhone 8 of their day. Since the days of the Sturm lantern in the 17th century, the technology had developed from basic projectors producing small, dimly lit images, to these magnificent machines capable of spectacular technicolour lantern entertainments.

From the moustache spoon and the nose-shaping device to the washing machine, the period following The Great Exhibition of 1851 was a time of prolific invention in the UK.

A new auction house is to open in London hoping to find a gap in the market for cameras, scientific and medical instruments.

Readers old enough to remember using one at school may also recall Sam Cooke’s 1960 song in which he lamented “don’t know what a slide rule is for”. Today, few teenagers would know what one was.

Daniel Quare (1648-1724) is primarily known as a clock and watchmaker. He was, however, also an accomplished maker of portable barometers, one of which came up for sale at Dorotheum (25/22/15% buyer’s premium) in Vienna on March 29.

Tennants’ (20/18.5/17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of Scientific and Musical Instruments, Cameras and Tools on February 17 included a rare brass altazimuth theodolite, signed by London instrument makers Heath and Wing. Estimated at just £300-400, it sold in its original box together with wooden tripod at £10,000.