Images(3)

Eyepiece

Date1954

Inventory NumberHA0115e

ClassificationComparator

Subject

Inventor Charlton Joseph Kadio Hinman 1911 - 1977

Maker Pentagon Products Company fl. 1954

Maker Arthur M. Johnson

User Houghton Library, Harvard University founded 1942

User William H. Bond 1915 - 2005

Maker Superfine Lens Cleaner Company

Maker Bussmann Manufacturing Division, McGraw-Edison Company founded 1929

Cultural Region

Place of Origin

Dimensions19.7 x 26 x 43.2 cm (7 3/4 x 10 1/4 x 17 in.)

Material

Accessoriesinstruction manual; extra fuses; lens cleaning tissues

DescriptionTwo-eyepiece optical machine supported on a table with four casters.

Black metal 5-sided frame on 4 legs with casters. Inside hood are mirrors and bulb. Lever attached to plate on rails on underside of object. Small motor mounted close to bottom.

Accessories include typed instructions for Hinman-type collator, extra Buss fuses, and lens cleaning tissues. These are currently stored in the instrument's file.

Curatorial RemarksThe file contains correspondence between the inventor, Charlton (Kadi) Hinman, and Prof. W. H. Bond, the Houghton Librarian. Also correspondence between Bond and A. M. Johnson, the manufacturer. A 1961 circular describing the latest form of Hinman collator being sold by Johnson is also in the file.

Functioncollating materials

ProvenanceHoughton Library, Harvard College Library, 1954; transfer to CHSI, 1986.

Historical AttributesUsed by William Henry Bond, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Professor of Bibliography, Librarian of the Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library. Made for Harvard in 1954 by Arthur M. Johnson of Silver Spring, MD, according to Johnson-Bond correspondence in the file. Probably the fourth ever made, and the third commercially-constructed machine. The first commercially-built Hinman collator went to the Folger Shakespeare Library for a massive collation of the first folio of Shakespeare. The prototype was built by Charlton J. K. Hinman, the inventor, out of apple crates, microfilm projectors, heavy cardboard, and a used erector set; it no longer exists. Some research concerning such a machine was done before World War II at Harvard, but wartime shortages impeded the research.