Wikipedia tells us: “A microscope slide was originally a ‘slider’ made of ivory or bone, containing specimens held between disks of transparent mica. These were popular in Victorian England until the Royal Microscopical Society introduced the standardized microscope slide in the form of a thin sheet of glass used to hold objects for examination under a microscope.”
I’d like to add the following: Antique microscope slides, looked at from a strictly aesthetic standpoint (egged on by a design obsessed brain obviously) are some of the most elegant and perfectly beautiful human artifacts on planet earth. You can quote me on that. See below for irrefutable
scientific aesthetic evidence.
So simple, so elemental, so tiny and gorgeous. The fact that so many of these survive came as a bit of a surprise to me, delicate as they are. That so many of them are for sale and can be bought, greedily, by yours truly amazes me. I plan to build a back-lit display in my office, or alternately take a few prized samples, scan them at ultra-high res, and reproduce them huge… voila! perfectly modern art for the discerning, science lovin, design dork. (Coudal swap meat here I come.)
The majority of the samples above were taken from the following sources:
Darwin Country.
The Gemmary.
The Manchester Microscopical Society.
ebay.
For a bit more see:
Ars Mechanica
Microscopy UK.
Hope you enjoyed.
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BEAUTIFUL assembly.