Description

UNUSUAL HELICAL FOCUSSING MICROSCOPE BY DRING AND FAGE, English, second half 19th century, signed on the base “Dring & Fage, 145 Strand, London.”  Made of contrasting chemically darkened and bright lacquered brass, the microscope extends from 13” to 18-1/2” (33 – 47 cm) tall by drawtube and by main tube helical external screw focussing.  It has a sturdy brass horseshoe base and inclining limb, and is equipped with rear pillar vertical fine focus motion, one ocular, one objective (Swift & Son), substage removable leaf diaphragm, and double mirror.  Condition is very fine, the case fair.

         Although Dring and Fage were prolific London makers of apparatus for customs purposes (hydrometers, saccarimeters, wantage rules, slide rules, etc.) throughout the 19th century and beyond, their microscopes are almost unknown.  We do find an 1880 advertisement for four models of their “Improved Microscope,” but none exist in either the R.M.S. collection or the Billings collection.  A rare microscope, the only one by Dring & Fage we know, and with an inventive focussing design known to us only on very rare stands by Hawkins and Wale of New York (see Padgitt Fig. 65, but note that there the groove is on the outer tube rather than the inner). $2950.