Scientific Instruments

The Bonhams Scientific Instruments department holds dedicated auctions twice a year, as well as offering property within the Gentleman's Library sale.

We offer instruments and apparatus from the earliest known historical artefacts to items from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Our sales contain microscopes, telescopes, surveying and navigational instruments, globes, sundials, astrolabes, calculators, drawing instruments, barometers and barographs, medical and dental instruments.

Highlights from past auctions

Sold for £10,000 inc. premium
A rare ivory anatomical model of a pregnant woman, German or Austrian, 1770's,
Sold for £39,650 inc. premium
A rare W & S Jones Cometarium, English, early 19th century,
Sold for £10,625 inc. premium
A pair of Nicholas Lane 3-inch pocket globes, English, 1830's, (2)
Sold for £85,250 inc. premium
An exceptionally rare three-rotor German Enigma enciphering machine, 1941,