Description

Background to J Swift from Antique Microscopes’ website:

James Swift were microscope makers trading from London and were founded in 1853 by James Powell Swift, who was the son of the watchmaker Thomas Swift. Before founding his company, James Swift was apprenticed to the well-known microscope maker Andrew Ross. In 1881 Swift brought in improvements to microscope design, including replacement of straight rack and pinion focusing with helical cut components along with a new fine focus mechanism.  In 1884, Mansell James Swift, son of James Powell, joined the company and the firm’s name was therefore changed to James Swift & Son.  Captain Scott was supplied with Swift microscopes for use on the RRS Discovery for his 1901-1904 Antarctic expedition, named in the catalogue of the time as the ‘Discovery’ model.  In 1903, Mansell Powell John Swift, grandson of the founder, joined the company.  In 1906, the founder of the company, James Powell Swift, died.  In 1912, the company was incorporated as a limited company and the firm’s name changed to J. Swift Ltd.  In 1942, both Mansell Powell and Mansell James died. In 1946, ER Watts and Son Ltd took over the company, mainly due to the association between the Watts and Swift families in earlier years.  In 1949, they employed John H. Basset who, in 1968, took over the company.

This example of a late Victorian Swift instrument is in very good cosmetic condition for its age and presents well with lovely gleaming brass-work details, bright lacquer finishes and just a little age-appropriate patination here and there to lacquer and anodised surfaces.  It’s survived well over the last 130 years or so and the lacquered brass-work still catches the light as I hope the listing photos illustrate. The instrument’s look and feel is of a quality not found in modern microscopes in that’s it’s fashioned from solid brass, giving it a solid feel despite its compact nature and still an imposing presence when in use with coarse focus and draw-tube fully extended.

Technical details – the construction is an anodised brass tripod foot, with twin uprights supporting a pivot and a continental pillar-style upper limb.  Coarse focus is by a friction-fit optical tube in brass with additional draw-tube also in brass.  This sits in a mount held in place by friction and the focusing technique is by push-pull sliding of the main optical tube, which works surprisingly well giving smooth control of coarse focus adjustment with a nice intuitive tactile feel.  Fine focus is controlled by a brass thumb-wheel atop the continental pillar, which also works well with some resistance and good smooth fine adjustment. 

In terms of its optics, this microscope is fitted with a single brass eyepiece, which works well giving nice bright images and is probably 8x magnification.  It’s also got a two Swift objective lenses with RMS thread on a double turret, as under:

– 1 inchs – 6x magnification
– 1/6 inch – 40x magnification

There’s a nicol prism analyser that can be attached to the optical tube above the objective for polarising applications.

The magnification range available with its current set of optics is therefore 48x to 320x.  I’ve tested the optics with various antique slides of thin section minerals specimens and the images produced are perfectly acceptable when using good illumination.

The instrument tilts for inclined viewing and holds in position through its working range as it should.  The specimen stage is fitted with twin clips which work well for holding slides steady and there’s a wheel of stops for setting the aperture which rotates with just the right resistance to motion and there’s also a positive click when the apertures are correctly aligned to the optical axis.

Sub-stage there’s 39mm friction-fit mount to which the nicol prism polariser can be fitted as shown in the listing photos.  This can be rotated and in conjunction with the nose-piece analyser when both are crossed provide extinction as expected.  Lighting is via a double-sided plano-concave mirror in a brass carrier and gimbal mount, with a useful range of height and rotation adjustment, with good period silvering.  

In order to demonstrate how good the polarising functionality is I’ve included some photos just taken by balancing an iPhone on the eyepiece showing the polarising hardware in operation.  The slide in question is Olivine Gabbro from Ardnamurchan in the Scottish Highlands and you can see the colour changes of the different minerals as the polariser is rotated, which are quite spellbinding.

In terms of condition/maintenance, the instrument has been very lightly lubricated with non-hardening grease, so that the controls operate smoothly.  This example of a late Victorian Swift compact microscope while being very usable and a good desk-top instrument in view of its dimensions, should also make an interesting technical display piece, perhaps in a library or home office type of setting, especially when set up with an appropriate antique slide such as the thin-section mineral slides I was using for testing purposes as shown in the listing photos. 

Owing to the weight and delicacy of this antique microscope, it will be partially dismantled, carefully wrapped for shipping and dispatched by insured courier upon receipt of cleared funds. 

Thanks for looking.