Description

Offered for sale is a nicely presented example of Watson’s Edinburgh Student’s Stand-H model microscope in brass – it dates to around 1911 based on its serial number 14035.  It’s marked W. Watson & Sons Ltd with manufacture after the firm’s move to limited company status which occurred in 1908.  This is a generally good cosmetic example with very little wear and lacquered brass-work that’s retained most of its condition, which is remarkable considering the instrument’s age at 113 years and counting.  I hope that the listing photos do the instrument justice and showcase its excellent condition.

The Edinburgh pattern model of microscope was produced by Watson between 1887 and around 1945; its long production run giving us a firm clue regarding just how good this model of microscope was in its heyday and over that long production cycle Watson regularly updated and improved the model, so what you see here is a second generation example retaining some of the original Edinburgh features of the model, with the addition of developments and improvements.  For example it’s got the later more upright brass tripod, the stage is still attached via brass bolts to the upper limb, the rotating plate to the top of the stage has been dropped, but the useful feature of the mirror on a swinging support arm remains.  The Edinburgh stand was originally developed by Watson in collaboration with a professor and lecturer in bacteriology at the University of Edinburgh, hence the Edinburgh designation. With its signature rear cross-member giving that classic “H” look and nice lacquered brass-work, the Edinburgh H is a fine example of British optical engineering with a design and style essentially dating back to the Victorian era. 

Turning to the technical details, the coarse focus is via rack and pinion with good smooth action that holds in position on adjustment.  Fine focus is operated via a separate brass thumb-wheel located at the rear of the upper limb which operates an internal lever system acting against sprung resistance.  The focusing technique being to achieve near focus with the coarse thumb-wheels, then fine-tune with the single rear thumb-wheel, which only has a fairly small range of movement via its vernier screw mechanism.

With the optics, this Watson microscope comes fitted with a period graduated brass eyepiece draw-tube inside a brass main optical tube and there’s two vintage Watson eyepieces that with adequate illumination produce very good images:

– 5x magnification
– 10x magnification

It’s also got four period objectives in total and a period Watson double turret which rotates freely with a nice positive feel as the objectives align to the viewing position.  The objectives are as follows:

– 2/3rds inch in brass – Watson – 10x magnification
– 1/6th inch in brass – Watson – 40x magnification
(the objectives have their correct brass canisters)

Overall therefore, the range of magnification available with this Watson ranges from about 50x with the lowest power lens combination, up to around 400x with the highest power combination.

The fully mechanical stage is an original Watson design in brass with twin thumb-wheel adjusters on the right hand side of the stage that have just the right feel and give excellent x/y sample movement.  It’s fitted with brass specimen clips for holding slides steady during inclined viewing and when the axes are being moved around.  The freely running x/y controls also offering fine control of specimen positioning, which is a real advantage for higher magnification work.  There’s a slider mechanism with clips for holding slides steady which works well.  This can be locked in place via a thumb-screw mechanism and there’s also a useful slide-ejection feature – by twisting a thumb-screw on the left hand side of the slider you can help eject the slide for removal/swapping over.  There’s also vernier scales for both axes.

Turning to the sub-stage, we have a top-mount Watson Abbe-type condenser in a brass ring-carrier with centering controls comprising brass thumb-screws, which sits in a height adjustable rack and pinion mount with single-sided brass thumb-wheel to adjust the height along with a swing-out feature allowing easy swapping or maintenance of the condenser hardware.  I’ve shown the swing-out feature in the listing photos.  The condenser assembly also has a working iris to control lighting levels and there’s a 35mm swing-out carrier fitted for adding coloured, opaque of dark-field filters.  Lighting is via a plano-concave mirror on a height and swing-adjustable brass support arm with slider and gimbal giving good adjustability, with period silvering that’s in good condition with some foxing to both sides.

The instrument’s controls and friction surfaces have been very lightly lubricated and operate smoothly with a nice feel and there’s very little in the way of age-related signs of wear to all moving parts such as coarse focus, fine-focus, eyepiece draw-tube, mechanical stage, condenser rack and plano-concave mirror.  This instrument presents very well with lovely gleaming brass-work showing a few signs of tarnishing and spotting here and there, with just a bit of verdigris on one of the coarse focus thumb-wheels.  This indicates to me that the instrument has obviously been very well looked after throughout its life and it’s in excellent shape for an instrument that’s about 113 years old.  This example is essentially a very nice collectible Watson Edinburgh Stand-H model in the right condition for a collector or connoisseur and it’ll make a great usable and display item and is offered at an attractive price point for an antique Edinburgh-H model of this age in this condition.  It also presents really well while being used as a desk-top instrument and will also display rather nicely in a library of home office setting.

There’s an original Watson storage case with this example, with wooden/brass carry-handle, internal lens rack and a door with lock present but missing its key, so is fitted with a latch to help keep the door closed.  Overall the case has quite a good exterior sheen, the correct fittings to its interior, so complements the microscope perfectly.

Owing to the weight and delicacy of this antique Edinburgh-H microscope and its case, it will be partially dismantled, very well wrapped for shipping and dispatched by insured courier upon receipt of cleared funds.