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 finishes.  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 demonstrate. 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 racked out.

Technical details – the construction is an anodised brass tripod foot, with twin uprights supporting a pivot and a Lister-type upper limb.  Coarse focus is by rack and pinion via over-sized brass thumb-wheels which have a nice tactile feel and it’s interesting to observe that the pinion is helical cut, therefore dating this instrument post 1881.  The rack is also obviously the newer-style diagonal cut, giving the coarse focus adjustment quite a smooth action that holds in position as it should through its working range – there’s also tension adjustment available which is a nice extra feature to have.  Fine focus is not supplied for this specialist instrument, which is geared towards low/medium power polarising work.  The optical tube also has a nicol prism analyser on an in/out slider as demonstrated.

In terms of its optics, this microscope is fitted with a single specialist polarising-type top-hat brass eyepiece, which works well giving nice bright images and is probably 8x magnification, with internal cross-hairs and a moveable pointer mechanism.  It’s also got a two Swift objective lenses with RMS thread on a double turret, as under:

– 1.5 inches – 4x magnification
– 1/4 inch – 25x magnification

The magnification range available with its current set of optics is therefore is around therefore 32x to 200x.  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 circular brass specimen stage is fitted with twin clips and it also rotates with good damping so that it holds position well on adjustment.  The external rim of the stage is graduated with a 360 degree scale. 

Sub-stage there’s a nicol prism polariser with both rotation and a swing-out feature and I’ve tested the analyser/polariser which when crossed provide extinction as expected.  Lighting is via a single-sided concave mirror in a brass carrier and gimbal mount, with a useful range of height and rotation adjustment, period silvering showing some margin losses and reflectivity that’s still perfectly adequate. 

The instrument has been very lightly lubricated with non-hardening grease, so that the controls operate smoothly.  This example of a late Victorian Swift polarising microscope while being quite usable, 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.