DESCRIPTION:
This is a small Lister Limb compound monocular student or household microscope likely made in France for the English and American Markets. It was referred to as the Acme model in some advertisments. It sits on a flat tripod with two uprights leading to the inclination joint. It has two stage clips. There is a French-style triplet button objective. It has a single nickel-plated eyepiece of 23.1 mm diameter. It has a single gimbaled concave mirror about 24.4 mm in diameter. It stands about 8 inches(20 cm) high as pictured in the images.

As shown here, it features an 'eccentric' or pin in slotted-knob focusing mechanism, which works smoothly. From the mid-position, as the knob is turned counterclockwise, the pin, and with it the optical tube is pushed upward; as the knob is rotated clockwise, the pin and optical tube are pushed downward.

HISTORY OF THE 'ACME' MICROSCOPE

This microscope was sold by Meyrowitz as the 'Acme' and simply sold as a 'Microscope, 3 lenses, with joint for inclination and eccentric adjustment...Magnifying power 90 diameters' by the Heill company. It was one of many student microscopes sold in America in the 1890's and early 1900's, and imported from France. As can be seen in the illustration from the Meyrowitz catalog, the cheap drum microscope was still being sold in the early twentieth century, now with an achromatic lens, called the 'Boys Compound' microscope by Meyrowitz. While Meyrowitz's price for the Acme was $7.50, the Boys model was only $2.50. One should keep in mind that the boys model in today's (2016) dollars would be about $65 and the the Acme almost $200. At that time, a solid but basic continental microscope was about $50 and a good Spencer was about $65-that is about $1600 today.

As can be seen here, this microscope was sold in France by Deyrolle as their D model. It was also sold by the Vion company, also in France. The Deyrolle Model O is also on this site.