New Leeuwenhoek Microscopes
Figure 2: This silver instrument was the fi rst of two identifi ed by the author in 2014. It appears to be a genuine Leeuwenhoek microscope and had been found in a box of toy trinkets. There are air bubbles in the lens, as in some other Leeuwenhoek microscopes. It was never offered for public sale but was sold privately to a Dutch collector.
T e ultimate test would assuredly lie in eliciting the minutiae of construction, of which a forger would be unaware. It seemed that surface images from a scanning electron microscope (SEM) would give unique and unprecedented insights. Ordinarily we use the SEM for high-magnifi cation imaging, but I proposed a radical alternative: to use the instrument for high-resolution macrographs at low magnifi cation. T ese would be uniquely revealing. However, neither the vendor nor the auction house was attracted to this proposal, and the diminutive microscope was never put up for auction. Instead, it was privately sold to an enthusiast, a property developer and scientifi c instrument collector in the Netherlands. T e Boerhaave Museum shared my belief that it appeared to be authentic, though no SEM
2015 November •
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Figure 3: Metal detector enthusiasts excavated this microscope from mud that had been dredged from a canal in Leeuwenhoek’s hometown of Delft, and it was offered for sale on eBay in December 2014. It was sent to Cambridge by the purchaser, Spanish toxicologist Dr Tomás Camacho, for appraisal. This example is a near-twin of a genuine microscope in the Boerhaave Museum.
investigations have been undertaken. T us, there were then eleven Leeuwenhoek microscopes.
Third Newly Discovered Microscope Nine months later a further example was one of several artifacts located by metal detector enthusiasts who were trawling through a Dutch landfi ll. T e mud had been excavated in the 1980s when the canals of Delſt were being refurbished, and Delſt is where Leeuwenhoek had lived and worked. T e discolored little artifact was off ered for sale on the online auction site eBay, and the purchaser emerged as a leading Spanish toxicologist and
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