Spencer Delineascopes

Chap book and pictures courtesy of Dick Blacher. Comments by Paul Jackson.

Spencer Delineascopes and Accessories

No date

This booklet measures 9 1/4" x 6" and has 100 pages. The booklet is basically a catalog for Spencer Lens Co. Spencer products included microscopes, microtomes, delineascopes and their accessories along with other scientific instruments. This catalog was produced most likely in the early 1920s. The catalog was printed by the Roycroft and has their logo on a rear page but my picture was to poor to post. A delineascope was an early movie projector. The Roycroft also did up another booklet for Spencer called Success in Practice. Neither of these booklets are  listed in McKenna.


Spencer History:
American Optical was established in 1833 as a small spectacle manufacturing concern in Southbridge, Massachusetts. The company grew rapidly, gradually acquiring additional facilities for manufacturing a range of optical products. In 1935 this expansion lead to its purchasing the Spencer Lens Company of Buffalo, New York (see below). For several years after the acquisition the Spencer Lens Company continued operation under its own name before becoming known as the Instrument Division of American Optical Company in 1945. In 1982 Reichert partnered with AO, by that time a part of the Warner-Lambert Group. The partnership used the name Reichert-Jung. They were bought by Cambridge Instruments in 1986, which then purchased Bausch & Lomb's optical systems division in 1987 (moving it to the former Spencer works in Buffalo), using the name Cambridge instruments. Cambridge Instruments merged with Wild-Leitz in 1990 to form Leica plc. Stereo microscopes continued to be manufactured at the former Spencer works in Buffalo, sold first under the Cambridge and then the Leica brand.

A Delineascope




This Spencer Delineascope projected 3" by 4" slides by means of an interchangeable condensing lens system. These projectors were used in large auditoriums as well as traditional-size class rooms.

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