Quekett Spring Sale
Saturday 14th March 2026
This was the fourth sales meeting (now called the Quekett Spring Sale) to be held in the Village Hall of Sonning Common, a few miles outside Reading. As usual, there were lots of bargains and interesting items for sale, from bulbs and filters to recent infinity stands, many of which had been sold by lunchtime. To try to encourage members to attend, the Annual General Meeting was held in the afternoon.
Sonning Common Village Hall
Joan Bingley was selling slides and providing boxes so that we could carry them home safely. The slides included diatom test slides by NBS, and other diatom slides.
Joan Bingley
Some of Joan’s diatom slides
Joan was also trying to sell an old ring-light with a suitcase full of accessories.
Gordon Brown was offering three Olympus BX stands at bargain prices that only needed objectives to make them functional. He was also selling a trinocular Reichert Zetopan with a wooden box of accessories, a Leitz trinocular head, several binocular heads and various other items.
Gordon Brown trying to sell Olympus BX microscopes
Trinocular Reichert Zetopan compound with accessories
Gordon’s accessories
Richard Courtiour (richieathome on eBay) was offering enough slides to fill a cabinet, a brass microscope, lots of objectives (some with their cases) and eyepieces, condensers, polarizing accessories, wooden cases, and lots of other items.
George and Richard Courtiour
Richard’s objectives, condensers, etcetera
Richard’s objectives in canisters, etcetera
A few of Richard’s slides
Richard’s brass microscope
Douglas Downer-Smith was selling some slide sets of diatom strews, a CD of Common Freshwater Diatoms of Britain and Ireland, some objectives, some old stage micrometers and a few small items.
Douglas Downer-Smith’s sales
Simon Dyer started using DIC on his Olympus BH-2 with the BH2-RFC fluorescence attachment that includes a DIC slider. He does not want fluorescence and wanted something less bulky, so he has recently bought the BH2-NA intermediate tube. Now he is looking for a buyer for the fluorescence attachment. He was also selling a piece of equipment for stacking using microscope objectives.
Simon’s Olympus BH2-RFC fluorescence and DIC equipment
Phil Greaves was selling several microscopes that the Natural History Museum no longer requires, some monocular Lomo Biolams (£5 each) and some Leica stereos (£20 each). Other microscopes included a black trinocular Leitz, some binocular compounds and a brass microscope. Other items included a Watson shearing eyepiece, phase contrast condensers, objectives and books
Phil Greaves
Phil Greaves’ sales table
Pam Hamer had a binocular Reichert microscope, a Bausch & Lomb Duboscq colorimeter, a lamp, some gelatine filters, resolution test targets, and books related to forensics.
Pam Hamer
Chris Kennedy brought three boxes of old books, including several from the Ray Society.
Some of Chris Kennedy’s books
Chris Millward had his usual wide range of items, including some monocular microscopes, a compact dissecting microscope, a small stereo, a couple of microscope lamps, an analogue video camera, parts of a photographic enlarger, some books, and some laboratory equipment, chemicals and glassware.
Jonathan Crowther and Chris Millward
Chris Millward’s sales table
Some of Chris Millward’s microscopes
Tony Pattinson was showing and selling copies of his “The Freshwater Microscopist” books; there are six in the series so far. They are also available from Brunel Microscopes.
Tony Pattinson (left) and Peter Sunderland
Jeremy Sanderson has returned to the Quekett after a break to write his books Essentials of Light Microscopy and Understanding Light Microscopy with items including a Leitz Aristophot with transmitted-light macro stage, a much smaller Olympus macro stand (a stereo microscope stand with a ¼″ adapter to hold a camera, on an X-DE Trans-Illuminator Base), and a simple Zeiss Standard for medical use with its very heavy box. He also had filters, phase-contrast condensers, a camera lucida, a ringing turntable on a very long base, and various other items.
Lisa Ashby and Jeremy Sanderson
Jeremy Sanderson’s sales table
Mark Shephard was offering two microscopes, including an unusual Meopta G11P stereo microscope that allows the stand and the head to be tilted, a few books, several sets of slides, and some microscope parts.
Pam Hamer, Mark Shephard and Joan Bingley
Alan Wood was trying to sell some small items, including stage plates for stereos, centring slides, a Leitz Periplan eyepiece with 28 mm thread, an Olympus CT-4 phase telescope and an Olympus PM-ADF eyepiece adapter.
Alan Wood’s sales
Acknowledgements
Our thanks to Tony Pattinson for organising another enjoyable day for microscopists, to everyone who brought along items for us to buy at bargain prices, and to those who helped get out and put away the tables and chairs.
Report and photographs by Alan Wood