When I was in high school, he gave me his old microscope which had a lot of sentimental value to him. He took good care of it and kept it in nearly new condition. I took a few pictures of it as I was showing it to the girls.
This is the original box that it lives in.
The front says Bausch & Lomb,
and on the back is stamped the date: Jan. 5, 1915.
A close-up of the optics.
The brass still shines, despite its age.
You can see the aperture beneath the tray reflected in the mirror. It's really cool to move the slider and watch it open and close so precisely. All of the small curved blades fit perfectly and allow very fine-tune control over how much light is allowed to reach the opening in the tray. There are so many interesting details and parts that make up this instrument and it is fascinating to see how they all work together. Everything fits and lines up so carefully and was obviously intended to last.
A light that can be attached beneath the tray in place of the mirror. Yeah, I'm not even gonna try to plug that in...
Inside the upper part of the wooden box are a couple of racks that slide out. This one holds all the individual containers for storing the optics as well as a bottle of some fluid that has long ago dried up. I think it is an adhesive of some kind, perhaps to glue specimens to the glass slides?
There's a whole box full of unused glass slides, too.
I think that the samples were put into cardboard sleeves like this and sent off to a lab. At least that's my best guess.
On the back of the cardboard sleeve...
In the other rack are a couple of optics that can be swapped out with the viewing piece at the top of the microscope. They are in varying strengths.
It brings back a lot of memories to look at all this. I remember the very cold December day when my grandpa got this out and showed me all of it and how everything works. I wish I could remember everything he said, but I do recall viewing lots of interesting things that he had on slides. I think this microscope was very important to him because he was very careful with it (even though it is steel and could probably stop bullets) and he talked about how he never wanted to sell it even long after he stopped using it. I imagine that it was a big investment at that time for a broke med student and he might have valued it like I do my guitars. It probably carried many memories for him, too.
Tomorrow I am going to gather up some leaves, hair, fabric, an cicada wing, and anything else of interest to show the girls under the microscope. There's a whole world under our noses that don't see!
