Scientific Instruments

This rare US patent model, offered for sale by German ‘technical antiques’ specialist Auction Team Breker (21.8% buyer’s premium), aimed to change the way messages were passed via the telegraph in the mid 19th century.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

The slide rule shown here belonged to Dhunjeebhoy Rustomjee, who came from a fine line of Indian master ship builders in ancestry.

This instrument dates from the founding days of one of the world’s most significant aerospace manufacturers: Short Brothers

The Paris firm of Roullet & Decamps was famous for automata, walking and moving dolls and toys.

Jason Clarke Antiques has for sale at £8500 this unusually large 9in diameter, c.1770, universal equinoctial ring dial by Dollond of London

Georg Merz and Joseph Mahler took over the Utzschneider & Fraunhofer company in 1839.

Early stereoscopic images featured in the collection of a dealer curious about how technology transformed life in Victorian times

The Winter Maritime Sale at Eldreds on February 28-March 1 includes an 18th century Islamic brass quadrant made in the Maghreb region of north-west Africa.

The famous firm of Negretti & Zambra was formed in London in 1850 by the Italian-born Henry Negretti and Joseph Warren Zambra

Dreweatts in Newbury has for sale this fine Victorian ‘weather station’ with a full provenance and a portrait of its former owner.

Steam engine made in France and later installed in Sussex museum graced same exhibition as the Eiffel Tower

A substantial Victorian monocular microscope auctioned by Flints (25% buyer’s premium) dated 1858 and 1863 on the objectives was not only a good bit of kit with lots of accessories included but came signed with the owner’s name in several places.

Thomas Edison’s electric pen might not have flourished as planned for the purpose of duplicating documents but if you have a tattoo you can be thankful.

Antiques dealer and taxidermy specialist Emma Hawkins is selling a collection from her townhouses in Edinburgh and London at Sotheby’s this month.

André Romain Guilmet’s industrial themed clocks, the epitome of Victorian ‘progress’, are an ever-popular series.

A microscope used by Joseph Banks (1743-1820) on Captain Cook’s first Voyage of Discovery (1768-71) is going under the hammer estimated at £30,000-50,000 on November 1.

By 1920, as a new era of aero-engined racing cars threatened to break the 100mph barrier, the emerging sport of motor racing required better and more precise time-keeping.

The National Vintage Communications Fair has rebranded itself and is now called RetroTechUK.

A round-up of current catalogues from folk-art at the rescheduled Winter Show to the Mellor-Cobham collection of English porcelain at Albert Amor