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 good cosmetic condition for its age and presents well with lovely gleaming brass-work details, bright lacquer finishes and just the age-appropriate patination here and there that you’d expect, with some losses mainly to the optical tube.  It’s survived well over the last 140 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 heavy solid feel and quite an imposing presence when extended for use with coarse focus and draw-tube both racked out.

Technical details – the construction is a large heavy  brass tripod foot with its design reminiscent of the Crouch-type, with twin uprights supporting a pivot and an elegant elongated Lister-type upper limb.  The design of the limb is reminiscent of Watson’s Jackson model microscope from the late Victorian era and there’s a good range of coarse focus that should allow objectives of up to 4 inches achieve focus.  Coarse focus is by rack and pinion with some rather nice easy-to-use over-size brass thumb-wheels which have a really nice tactile feel.  The rack is the older-style horizontal cut, which has quite a smooth action and holds in position as it should through its working range – there’s also tension adjustment available.  With this being horizontal cut, that may indicate a manufacture date nearer to 1880 for this instrument.  Fine focus is via a small brass thumb-wheel located on the left front of the main tube, being a vernier screw acting against sprung resistance on the nose-piece only, which also works well.

In terms of its optics, this microscope is fitted with a non-graduated brass eyepiece draw-tube, which holds position on adjustment.  The instrument is supplied with a single top-hat brass eyepiece, which works well giving nice bright images and will be about 6x magnification.

It’s also got a selection of low/medium power objective lenses which screw directly into the optical tube one by one, as under:

– 3 inches – 2x magnification – R & J Beck in brass canister
– 1 inch – 6x magnification – unbranded brass two-part objective – some internal cloudiness but still usable
– 2/3rds inch – 10x magnification – Watson with brass canister

The magnification range available with its current set of optics is therefore is around 12x to 60x and intended for low power entomology and similar work.  I’ve tested the optics with various antique slides of insect and animal specimens and the images are perfectly acceptable when using good illumination via the over-size illumination mirror, which being multi-adjustable is capable of giving some good options for oblique/dark-field lighting especially of insect specimens.

The instrument tilts for inclined viewing and holds in position through its working range as it should and it can be tightened as required.  The circular all-brass specimen stage rotates through a full 360 degrees with just the right amount of damping, so that it holds position well on adjustment without any slippage.  There’s a top-plate that’s movable manually with x/y adjustment and this gives adequate options for specimen positioning.  There’s also a system for holding slides comprising prongs for resting slides on and a slider for holding them in place, which works quite well with a little practice.

With this example being set up for entomology there’s no technical sub-stage fitted at present.  There’s a dovetail recess to the tail-piece for fitting sub-stage accessories such as condensers/polarisers and the like.  Lighting is via an over-size plano-concave mirror in a brass carrier and gimbal mount with a very good range of height and rotation adjustment, with excellent period silvering to both sides.  There’s also a bull’s-eye condenser for lighting opaque specimens.

The instrument has been very lightly lubricated with non-hardening grease, so that the controls operate smoothly.  This example displays really well having quite a presence extending to around 18 inches in height, with its bright lacquer finishes highlighting the lovely brass-work detailing.  Overall, this example of a late Victorian Swift while being quite usable, should also make an imposing display piece, perhaps in a library or home office type of setting, especially when set up with an appropriate antique slide. 

There’s also the original storage case with this instrument which is in good age-appropriate condition, with lovely deep sheen to its exterior mahogany finish.  It’s fitted with extensive internal racking, a brass carry-handle and with lock & key missing, a latch to help keep the door closed.

Accessories:
– live box
– bull’s-eye condenser – for illumination of opaque specimens

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