Second Edition - Brass and Glass: Optical Instruments and Their Makers

The second edition of Brass and Glass: Optical Instruments and Their Makers is now available. It is an encyclopaedia of optical instruments, and the individuals and companies, from the earliest to the end of the 20th century, who have made them. Considerably updated, corrected, and expanded on the first edition, it contains over 3000 alphabetical entries, including:

Optical instrument makers and brands Telescopes Binoculars Microscopes Cameras Navigation instruments

Scientific instruments Surveying instruments Military optical ordnance Laboratory & educational instruments Medical instruments Optical terminology

There are appendices containing information on selected related subjects such as optical glass and eyepiece designs.

The inspiration for the book came from my interests in stargazing, photography, microscopy and bird-watching. I began to take an interest in classic and vintage telescopes, microscopes, binoculars and cameras, as well as other optical instruments. I found the lack of reference material frustrating - I would see an interesting looking vintage telescope at auction, but to find out more about the maker I would have to buy extraordinarily expensive reference books, many of which are out of print. Further, the information I sought was frequently scattered around multiple sources, and time-consuming to collate. I wanted an affordable, simple, encyclopaedic reference in which I could find the name of the maker or optical instrument and a concise, but informative article about them. This book is my attempt to remedy that gap in the literature.

Since the invention of the telescope and the microscope in the early seventeenth cetury there have been countless makers of optical instruments. It would be impossible to include an entry for every one of them. However, it is intended that makers of note should be included, as well as most of the makers the reader might encounter when perusing an auction or boot fair.

A table of contents for the first edition may be found here.