Most of the brand names listed below are actual photos of brand labels on new and used microscopes in stock.  Martin Microscope Company is not necessarily an authorized reseller of all brands listed, and some of these brands are no longer in business under the name listed.  Opinions given are our own and are not authorized or endorsed by any manufacturer.

Some brand labels below are links to that company's web-site.

Meiji Techno is a popular Japan manufacturer of student, clinical, and industrial microscopes.  Meiji microscopes have become our top-selling brand for education and industry, which is why they are listed first.  We particularly like their rugged EM and RZ series stereomicroscopes.  Meiji has introduced several new models recently including the MX compound and TC inverted scopes.  

The Leica brand is a conglomerate formed by the merger of Wild, Leitz, American Optical, Bausch & Lomb, Cambridge, Reichert and Jung.  Martin Microscope Company has been a dealer for all of these product lines.  Leica Microsystems is a multinational company with production facilities is many countries.  For instance, the CME educational microscope is actually made by Labomed, India.  The DME and DM1000 microscopes are made in China, and the traditionally Swiss M-Series stereomicroscopes are now made in Singapore!

Now part of Leica, these Swiss-made instruments are the highest quality.  Martin Microscope Company was the second Wild microscope dealer in the US (see Company History).  Used M5 stereoscopes are still in demand.  The Leica MZ series microscopes have continued the Wild tradition of top of the line optics, but they are no longer made in Switzerland.  There is an excellent history of Wild Heerbrugg here...

Also part of Leica,  Leitz microscopes from Germany have traditionally been excellent.  The Leica DM series scopes continue this line, though they are not necessarily still made in Germany.  The Leitz Ortholux and Orthoplan models are still in demand after 30-40 years.

American Optical (AO) designs have been popular for many years in educational and clinical microscopy.  AO was first to recognize the advantages of infinity optics, ingeniously designing the nosepiece to focus while the stage, arm, and head stayed fixed.  The fixed stage was perfect for micromanipulation and various custom applications.  Strangely, no current microscope manufacturers have adopted this design...

B&L microscopes were traditionally made in the US, and are best known for their Stereozoom series.  These have just recently been discontinued by Leica, but we're told that Chinese copies are now available from various sources.

Reichert, also a Leica brand, was best known among our customers for their MeF series inverted metallographs and OmE sledge microtomes.  Used OmE microtomes continue to be popular in the textile industry for making fiber cross-sections.

Carl Zeiss is a high quality German brand famous for their quality optics.  Zeiss, along with Leica, Nikon, and Olympus is one of the four full-line microscope manufacturers in the world today.  Like Leica, they now have facilities around the world, so many lower end Zeiss microscopes are now made in Mexico and China (see Motic above).  The high-end Zeiss scopes are not sold through dealers in the US anymore - Zeiss now sells these direct.  Martin Microscope Company has never been a dealer for Zeiss, though we often have pre-owned  Zeiss instruments in stock.

Aus Jena, known outside the US as Carl Zeiss, Jena, is the original Zeiss plant located in Jena, Germany (formerly East Germany) (see Company History).  The Zeiss, Jena facility continued to produce some fine instruments in the Eastern Bloc up until about 1990 when Germany was reunified and control of the company was given to Carl Zeiss, West Germany.  The Jena product line has been discontinued, but we at Martin Microscope Company have several new and used models left for sale including the Interphako models of Mach Zehnder microinterferometers.

Nikon is a major Japanese manufacturer.  Their quality has improved over the years to the point that they are now world-class.  Older Nikon scopes (pre 1970 or so) should generally be avoided.  The Optiphot/ Labophot scopes and the new Eclipse series are very good.  We often recommend Nikon incident light microscopes for industrial applications.  However, their student microscopes, due to Chinese competition, have been cheapened to the point that we no longer recommend them. 

Olympus is another Japanese brand which, like Nikon, has become one of the top four microscope manufacturers in the world.  The BH and newer BX series scopes seem to be very popular.  The CX31 is a good student microscope made in the Philippines, but the CX21, made in China, is disappointing in our opinion.  Motic has better models for less money.

Diagnostic Instruments has been long known for excellent after-market stands for stereomicroscopes and C-mount camera adapters for microscopes.  These products are made in USA.  Their stands and adapters are often better than those offered by the microscope makers.

Optem, now owned by Qioptiq (formerly Thales-Optem, formerly Ameral, ) makes specialty optical products mostly revolving around video microscopy.  Optem products we carry include C-Mount video camera adapters and zoom macroscopes.

Schott is huge multi-national glass company that manufactures, among many other things, fiberoptic illuminators.  We stock the Schott ACE illuminators (the former Fostec brand).  These are made in USA.

Chiu is another US manufacturer of fiberoptic illuminators.  These are less expensive than the Fostec illuminators, but Chiu does not offer  as many accessories.  Their basic dual arm 150W illuminator is quite a bargain.  Chiu also makes power supplies for microscope illuminators.

Opti-Quip is a US manufacturer of power supplies for Mercury and Xenon arc illuminators.  They also make high quality after- market lamphousings and sockets which are especially useful for upgrading discontinued microscopes.

Ludl Electronic Products (LEP) is another manufacturer of power supplies.  Many leading microscope manufacturers like Zeiss and Wild use (or used) private- labeled Ludl power supplies as original equipment.  We buy direct from Ludl and avoid the mark-up.