Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 125 (C Reichert; model RC; late 1940s)

A picture containing indoor, table, sitting, desk

Description automatically generatedA picture containing clock, front, sitting, table

Description automatically generatedA picture containing table, person, desk, mirror

Description automatically generatedA picture containing table, sitting

Description automatically generatedA picture containing indoor, sitting, front, table

Description automatically generated

Carl Reichert (1851 – 1922) was an optician who established one of the principal microscope manufacturing firms in Europe in the late 19th century. Reichert married into the Leitz family in 1874 (and was son in law of Ernst Leitz). In 1876 in Vienna, he founded the Optische Werke C. Reichert. He employed some Leitz technicians, explaining one reason why his products were so similar to those of Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar. Reichert designed new lenses, lighting equipment for microscopes, and one of the first microscopes for the study of metal surfaces. By 1900, the company had produced 30,000 microscopes, and 100,000 microscopes in 1930. Instruments were usually signed "C. Reichert, Wien". The firm was partially sold to American Optical in 1962, which was taken over in 1968 by Warner Lambert. By 1986, this company merged with Jung of Heidelberg and was sold to Cambridge Instruments, which in 1990 merged with Wild Leitz to form the Leica Group. In 1999 Reichert stopped microscope production, concentrating to instruments for sample preparations for transmission electron microscopy.  Microscope 125 is signed as ‘Reichert, Austria’, model RC, and has the serial number 154380, being dated to the late 1940s. The microscope contains a mechanical slide holder with the serial number 15187. This instrument came with its original wooden box.

 

References

Compound achromatic microscope, stand RC (http://stichtinghistorischemicroscopie.nl/en/microscopen/compound-achromatic-microscope-stand-rc-sm-361/), last accessed on 05.05.2022

 

LAST EDITED: 05.05.2022