This microscope would seem to be a copy of that illustrated in Beads of Glass as item 1 (p. 30). This example, currently in the Museum Boerhaave Leiden, came from the sale of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's microscopes in 1747, two years after the death of his daughter Maria, and 24 years after his in 1723. It was bought by Dirck Haaxman (a descendant of Margeretha, van Leeuwenhoek's sister), and remained in his family until 1929, when they sold it to the Boerhaave's predecessor, the Nederlandsch Historisch Natuurwetenschappelijk Museum. Beads of Glass states: "Only three [Leeuwenhoek microscopes], the so-called Haaxman microscopes, have a provenance that can be traced back to the 1747 sale: they are definitely original" (p. 28). The copy has the same lens plate dimensions (41 x 17mm.) and handle details on the long screw (three holes and three V-shaped cut outs) as microscope 1, differing only in the size of the objective mount aperture (that of the copy is 1.7mm, that of the original 0.55mm.). It is known that the Rijksmuseum voor de Geschiedenis der Natuurwetenschappen of Leiden (the renamed Leiden museum of natural history) permitted copies of microscope 1 to be made in the 1950s and 1960s, and it would seem likely that present example is one of those.