Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 92 (C Reichert, Wien; 1899)

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Description automatically generatedA picture containing metal, table, wooden, old

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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 92 is signed as C. Reichert Wien and has the serial number 19917. Also engraved on the instrument is the retailer's stamp ‘C Baker 244 High Holborn, London’. This microscope can be dated to 1899. This instrument was described as microscope ‘Austria’ No. III in the 1899 volume of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society (Figure 1), and was recommend to medical students.

 

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Figure 1. Reichert’s ‘Austria’ microscope stand No. III as engraved in the 1899 volume of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society.

 

LAST EDITED: 19.09.2020