Optical Instruments: Microscopes, Binoculars, Sextans, Theodolits, Hand Scopes

Optical instruments help us to know better our nature, enlarging the size of the Earth things, researching, surveilling or spying other persons. The human eyes, his own scrutiny and the lens instrument - only! - observing and metering our own planet and helping the society. Microscopes, binoculars, sextans, theodolits, hand and maritime scopes. No observatories or telescopes devoted to sky/cosmos research.

New Zealand

1997

Discoveries - 6v

James Cook (1728-1779), British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia in particular. The stamp depicts captain James Cook and his sextans.





This sextant was made by the optical instrument maker John Bird (1709-1776) and is thought to have belonged to captain and explorer Captain James Cook (Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library)

Brazil

1988

Antartica s/s

The souvenir sheet depicts the Antartic scientifc research and shows a monocular simple microscope in the stamp, among anothers propection instruments.

Ross Dependence

1995

Artic Explorers - 6v

40c stamp - captain James Cook holding a sextans and a hand scope, at second plane Resolution and Adventure ships


80c stamp - sir John Ross with a hand telescope , at second plane Erebus and Terror ships


$1.50 stamp - sir Ernest Shackleton with a binoculars, at second plane the ship Endurance

Here are some microscopes, magnifying glasses, surveying transits, and spy glasses from the U.S. (not a complete list)

U.S. Scott 1080
Dr. Harvey W. Wiley - 50th Anniversary Pure Food and Drug Act
Issued June 27, 1956


U.S. Scott 1263
Crusade Against Cancer
Issued April 1, 1965


U.S. Scott 1474
Stamp Collecting
Issued November 11, 1972


U.S. Scott 1754
Early Cancer Detection - Dr. Papanicolaou
Issued May 18, 1978


U.S. Scott 1804
Benjamin Banneker, surveyor
Issued February 15, 1980


U.S. Scott 1925
International Year of the Disabled
Issued June 29, 1981


U.S. Scott 2200
Stamp Collecting (with "fall in Love with stamp collecting" slogan cancel)
Issued January 23, 1986


U.S. Scott 3503
Diabetes Awareness
Issued March 16, 2001


U.S. Scott 3854
Lewis and Clark
Issued May 14, 2004


And to broaden the topic to postal history:

1888 or 1889 cover with return address for the American Postal Microscopical Club, Troy New York, a group which mailed slides around in a circuit for its members to view.



And a more modern corner card 1995, with a microscope from Midwest Scientific Instruments of Columbus, Ohio.

From Canada.

Germany, Berlin

1960

Robert Koch - 1v

Robert Koch (1843-1910) was a German physician and microbiologist, one of the main founders of modern bacteriology.

Norway
Port Authorities
November 14, 1985
Set of two, one stamp depicts sextant and hydrographic map.

Montenegro
Measuring Instruments
November 30, 2020
The stamp depicts sextant - a nautical instrument.

On October 26, 1971 Berlin issued this 30 pf stamp (Mi #416) to commemorate the centenary of the Materials Testing Laboratory in Berlin. Stamp depicts a microscope and a highly magnified view of a metal.

James Cook Commemoration. Five island nations issued sets of four stamps, all having a similar design. On four of these sets, one of the stamps depicted an instrument. The five showed a map on this value.

For the Youth - Optical Instruments
April 10, 1981
Germany
This stamp set features Bordakreis (ca 1800), Telescope (ca) 1770), Binocular-Microscope (ca 1860), Octant (1775).


Berlin
This stamp set features Theodolite (ca 1810), Äquatoreal (ca 1820), Microscope (1790), Sextant (ca 1830).

Argentina
Naval Hydrographic Service
June 5, 2004
Set of four, one stamp depicts sextant and hydrographic map.

Germany, DDR

1971

125 years of Carl Zeiss Jena - 3v

The stamps depicts two precision optical instruments manufactured by Carl Zeiss: a Theodolite and a Microscope. There is a third longer stamp of a Planetarium, also from Carl Zeiss, but out of the focus of this thread.

Palliser surveying the Canada/U.S. Border along the 49th parallel

New Zealand

1997

Discoveries - 6v

The $1.80 stamp of the set of 6 (I posted one in this thread yet) , remember the dutch explorer Abel Tasman (1603-1659), that was the first known European explorer to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), Fiji and New Zealand. The stamp shows a terrestrial telescope, in that time a very recent optical instrument .



Early depiction of a 'Dutch telescope' from the "Emblemata of zinne-werck" (Middelburg, 1624) of the poet and statesman Johan de Brune (1588-1658). The print was engraved by Adriaen van de Venne, who, together with his brother Jan Pieters van de Venne, printed books not far from the original optical workshop of Hans Lippershey.(wiki)

DDR (Germany)
Antique Microscopes
August 12, 1980
The stamp set features collection from Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung Optical Museum: Huntley (1740), Magny (1751), Amici (1845), and Zeiss (1873).