Vintage Visits: The Microscopes from Actor Paul Newman’s Father’s Sporting Goods Store

While exploring the Brook’s Collection of Antique Microscopes and Books, I found an interesting entry: a 1930s monocular student microscope originally purchased from the actor Paul Newman’s father’s sporting goods store, Newman-Stern Co. I was curious to know the backstory of this microscope and other microscopes sold by Arthur Newman.

Newman’s Own Sporting Goods

Before Paul Newman became a leading man in Hollywood, he worked as a clerk at his father’s sporting goods store, Newman-Stern Co., located in Cleveland, Ohio. The Newman-Stern Co. opened in 1915 and originally sold electronics, but transitioned to sporting goods after World War I, due to the federal government’s ban on the public sale of wireless equipment. Among the store’s vast inventory of sporting goods were also scientific odds and ends including chemistry sets and microscopes for children.

One of the first advertisements for a Newman-Stern microscope appeared in October of 1932 in Boys’ Life and Popular Mechanics magazines and featured a couple of different microscopes pictured below.

The microscope illustrated above has a horseshoe base, while the one below shows a simple rectangular base with a non-adjustable built-in mirror. Microscopical fields of view are also illustrated in the ads displaying crystals, a radiolarian, and insect parts in the upper right corner, giving the would-be buyer and idea of the microscope’s magnification capabilities.

Both ads make the claim that the microscopes are not toys, but rather scientific instruments; however, neither of these advertised models of Newman-Stern microscopes look like the one in the Brooks Collection.

I began looking to the used microscope market to see if I could find a Newman-Stern microscope like those pictured in the ads. I eventually found a vintage Newman-Stern microscope from the 1930s on eBay and purchased the microscope pictured below for $14. This microscope had the simple rectangular base and built-in non-adjustable mirror just like the model illustrated in the 1933 Boys’ Life magazine advertisement.

Vintage 1930s Newman-Stern Microscope

The nearly one-hundred-year-old simple microscope was in relatively good condition, with only small areas of oxidation along the base and around the eyepiece. This microscope is made mostly of cast iron with a rough “crinkle” finish and uses a sliding adjustable metal tube for focusing adjustments, which carries a single objective on one end and an eyepiece on the other.
A smooth black metal ring around the eyepiece acts as a stopping mechanism for the focusing tube and carries the Newman-Stern name stamped around the perimeter: “THE NEWMAN-STERN CO. CLEVELAND U.S.A.”

Leveling Up

In comparison, the quality and craftsmanship of the Newman-Stern microscope from the Brooks Collection, pictured below on the left, is a cut above compared to the one I purchased, shown on the right.

The Newman-Stern microscope from the Brooks Collection features the same crinkle finish on the cast iron base, but has an adjustable mirror, a larger square stage with stage clips, and two nesting objectives. The nesting objectives are of a similar design to those found on French microscopes, sometimes referred to as French triplets. The user can change magnifications by unscrewing the objectives and using each one individually or together.

In the above image, one of the objective lenses has been unscrewed and the sliding body tube removed. The body tube slides vertically for focusing, like the smaller Newman-Stern microscope.

A Little Microscope Made by a Big Schott

The Newman-Stern microscope from the Brooks Collection was purchased in 2010 from an eBay seller. The seller’s description mentions the Paul Newman connection and states the microscope is of German origin:

“Description: German brass microscope in original wood box was originally purchased from actor Paul Newman’s father’s (Arthur Newman) store in the early 1900s.”

This Newman-Stern microscope does not carry the Newman-Stern Co. private label stamped around the eyepiece like the smaller one I purchased, but does have the original Newman-Stern price tag sticker affixed to the outside bottom of the microscope’s original wooden box. This microscope cost $5 in 1932, which is the equivalent of $115 in 2024.

A stamped impression of the word “GERMANY” appears on one of the microscope’s stage clips, confirming its origins as being manufactured in Germany. But what German company was responsible for manufacturing this line of microscopes?

We find the answer from a faint ink stamp appearing on the inside corner of the wooden box that reads, “S&A”. In doing a bit of research, I found the initials “S&A” stand for “Schott & Associates,” referring to Otto Schott and his collaborators, Ernst Abbe and Carl Zeiss.

The founding of Schott & Associates is described in this reference from “The General History of Astronomy: Volume 4, Astrophysics and Twentieth-Century Astronomy to 1950: Part A”, Cambridge University Press, 1984:

“Abbe and Schott founded Schott & Associates in Jena, a firm which was to provide the Zeiss Company with optical glass…By the turn of the twentieth century the new types of glass had become established in microscopes, and telescopes of modest apertures.”

With the origins of this microscope determined, I became interested in the microscope’s previous owners’ handwriting on the inside lid of the wood box.

The Provenance of an Ideal Christmas Gift

The Newman-Stern Co. microscope advertisement from Boys’ Life magazine, January 1933, mentions that the microscope is the “Ideal Christmas gift”. Our S&A microscope made it into the hands of the previous owners around the holiday season starting in 1932. On the inside of the S&A’s microscope’s wooden box, there are two handwritten entries in pencil. From left to right, the first inscription reads “James Laurits, Dec 11, 1932, 14 Years” and the second entry reads, “Chris Laurits, 1957-1958, 11 ½ Years”.

From these two entries one can assume that James Laurits received the S&A microscope as an early Christmas gift, on December 11, 1932. In doing a bit of research on James, he and his wife moved to Palo Alto, California in 1955, and he took a job as a high school principal. At the time he received the microscope, James was 14 years old.

It seems 25 years after James received the microscope, he and his wife gifted their 11 ½ year old daughter, Chris, the same microscope. Chris records the date of the gift as what must be the end of the calendar year, “1957-1958”. What a great holiday story!

The Island of Misfit Toys

The advertisements for the Newman-Stern microscopes also point out that these microscopes are not toys. Despite what the ads claim, I believe the one I purchased on eBay is a toy and one could argue the S&A version is too, with a few more options. But what if they are toys? Does it matter? I feel sometimes toy microscopes get a bad rap from professional microscopists because of their non-corrected optics and the inability to make any adjustments beyond simple focusing. I believe this simplicity is also their strength when trying to introduce children to microscopy.

Below is an example from Alfred Stokes, in his book “Microscopy for Beginners: Or Common Objects from The Ponds and Ditches”, published in 1887, in which he states his dislike of using lower quality microscopes to introduce young people to the world of microscopy:

“…what are termed French triplets. These are miserable lenses that should be shunned, as they will do the observer more injury than much time can remedy… French triplets were extensively used and are said to have done some good work. But at what expense?…To the young student who longs for a microscope, I am almost tempted to say, if you cannot afford the cheapest suitable low power American objective, if you must have the ordinary French triplet or none, take none.”

Stokes does say he is “almost tempted”, but this statement could leave the young would-be microscope user on the sidelines. In recent years, I have heard professional microscopists refer to the very affordable and accessible Foldscope^TM as a gimmicky toy. Yikes!

The ease of using a toy microscope is what keeps a child coming back for more fun. By simply placing the smaller Newman-Stern microscope in a nearby window and sliding the body tube up and down, the image below popped into view in seconds. No other adjustments were required. The most difficult thing was aligning my smart phone camera above the eyepiece to capture the image.

Your first toy cooking set, musical instruments, and even a first bicycle, are usually lower quality facsimiles of things we all eventually come to use as adults. Children playing with a toy microscope become familiar with the basic concepts of magnification and microscopy. Ultimately, whether viewed as toys or legitimate scientific instruments, these Newman-Stern microscopes served as gateways to discovery, inspiring future generations to engage with the microscopic world around them.