Mystery item - tester/microscope

[robgul]

I bought this at a junk sale today - it seems to be of quite good quality, well made and in the original fitted plywood case. It says P T Barclay & Partners - SAM1 on it. So far I've tracked down that the business was in the UK and dissolved in 2010.

Any ideas what it might have been used for? - it looks to me to possibly be some sort of testing scope ( a bit like the traditional linen-tester magnifiers) - it opens like a telescope, the knob is for fine adjustment and there are some calibration marks on the top tube section.

Pic gives an idea of scale - approx 17cm top to bottom when closed, the bottom clear section is about 2.5cm deep and 5.5cm in diameter



... BTW, I resisted the large box of ancient tools - some very large wooden planes but worm-ridden.

 

[Alasdair]

Its interesting. Looks very like what my dad used to use for inspecting photographic prints he made. Found out PT barclay was bought out and I think they now specialize in the repo of ancient maps. Perhaps its used for looking at detail on old maps. The clear area at the base would be to let light in?
Alasdair

 

[Spectric]

Could it be part of a spectrometer or how about a magnifier for the older draughtsman in a drawing office with not so good eyesight.

 

[TheTiddles]

It’s an inspection microscope. Can be used on film but also for anything you can’t take to a microscope, you take that to it, useful with a graticle to show size of defects, inclusions etc
Still available, but the cheap USB powered ones are so effective now and you can capture straight to your phone on them

 

[SimonSwinden]

A bit late to the party here, found this thread as I have one myself and was checking its value. I worked for Marconi when they had a PCB shop, and we used it for checking and measuring the films used to print the PCB pattern. PT Barclay used to produce some of the films for us from CAD data supplied by customers. Mine looks a bit later as it has a faux leather case. It has 2 objective lenses, 8x and 60x and some eyepieces that look as if they are for using the microscope internals in another way.
For sale if anyone is interested.

 

[robgul]

A bit late to the party here, found this thread as I have one myself and was checking its value. I worked for Marconi when they had a PCB shop, and we used it for checking and measuring the films used to print the PCB pattern. PT Barclay used to produce some of the films for us from CAD data supplied by customers. Mine looks a bit later as it has a faux leather case. It has 2 objective lenses, 8x and 60x and some eyepieces that look as if they are for using the microscope internals in another way.
For sale if anyone is interested.

Interesting - thanks for the update . . . . if you get a run on customers to buy please let me know, I want to sell mine too