There's a Crepuscular Air in the shop tonight, courtesy of Mose, while I polish brass, clean glass and tend to a few final details before sending this unusual little scope back to its' home in Massachusetts. This piece the manufacturer called "Contessa", was made in the 1980's by a company called Van Cort Instruments, known for high quality antique scientific instrument reproductions, including telescopes, microscopes, kaleidoscopes and other scientific oddities.
I had to completely disassemble it because something was loose inside of the object cylinder…the part of this scope that contains all the little glass pieces that are reflected in the mirrors and make the multi faceted kaleidoscopic images. They were rather plain, so I took the liberty of replacing them with a mess o’ tiny colorful pieces that I formed using a hot flame and different types of stained glass (“lampworking”).
I also replaced the magnifying lens in the eyepiece which really sharpened up the image. The brass was also badly tarnished, so I spent a lot of time polishing and rubbing and polishing & polishing & polishing. It was mass produced piece, not an individually made kaleidoscope, but it was very well-made, and kind of expensive for a kaleidoscope when it was new.
Today, a well-made instrument can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars, and the collectors eagerly await creations made by the few really good scope artists scattered around the country. You can find pieces like this on eBay for a song, but are frequently in pretty rough shape.
Lucky for me, there doesn’t seem to be anybody else in the universe mentally twisted enough to take on the task of repairing these damn things, so for the time being, I guess I’ve created a little job security.
I guess I’m just nuts about these things! Helps keep my mind off the real insanity in Washington.
