Lot 60
60
A late 19th-Century lacquered-brass and nickel-finished double telescope transit theodolite signed on the horizontal plate HILDERBRAND FREIBERG i/s No. 3657,
A late 19th-Century lacquered-brass and nickel-finished double telescope transit theodolite signed on the horizontal plate HILDERBRAND FREIBERG i/s No. 3657,

Details
A late 19th-Century lacquered-brass and nickel-finished double telescope transit theodolite signed on the horizontal plate HILDERBRAND FREIBERG i/s No. 3657,
signed on the horizontal plate HILDERBRAND FREIBERG i/s No. 3657, the 125/8in. (32cm.) long telescope with rack and pinion focusing, spider's web adjusters, the trunnion piece with illumination window incorporating a dust-slide decorated with marbled green and brown lacquered finish, the axis supported by twin V-blocks, with cross bubble, the graduated scale engraved 15-0-15 and incorporating a swing adjustable reflector mirror, the 7in. (17.8cm.) diameter vertical circle with silvered scale enclosed within a spoked frame with twin verniers and magnifiers, the vernier scales with glazed windows and reflector frames, the spoked frame supporting the graduated bubble level with scale engraved 10-0-10, the twin arc axis support with marbled green and brown finish secured to the horizontal plate by four numbered counter-sunk bolts, with twin spring lock and tangent-screw fine adjusters allowing for the axis with telescope and vertical circle to be mounted in the reverse direction, the horizontal plate with lacquered fish-scale finish, the chamfered edge engraved N.263 enclosing the silvered horizontal circle with twin verniers, dust-protection windows and reflector frames, the two telescopic magnifiers mounted on delicately modelled shaped mountings, the plate with tangent-screw fine adjustment and clamp, the underside with pillar and trunnion incorporating the lower telescope with rack and pinion focusing, raised on a tripod mounting with green and brown marbled finished spokes and wheel, incorporating three fine-screw adjustable feet with turned brass protective pads, overall height -- 16¼in. (41.3cm.)

See Colour Illustration and Details
Literature
de CLERQ, P.R., ed., Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instruments and their Makers "German Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instrument Makers" by A. Brachner, Deutsches Museum, Munich (Amsterdam, 1985)

Lot Essay

Max Hilderbrand concentrated his work on astronomical and surveying instruments and was active largely in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. According to A. Brachner, he took over the workshop of A. Lingek and Co. (est.1791) in Berlin, a city which was home to a great number of scientific instrument workshops and establishments throughout the nineteenth century. Hilderbrand also parcipated in exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Berlin 1896. He married the daughter of J. C. Breithaupt, himself a maker of surveying, astronomical and physical instrument and measures.