Excellent, mid-19th century souvenir commemorates the famous Battle of Gettysburg using an original Civil War bullet drilled to fit a small glass lens showing views of the battlefield.

This particular specimen is made using an actual .58 caliber, 3-groove “minie” ball for rifle muskets. The embedded “Stanhope” lens (an extremely small glass bead manufactured in France with black and white image mounted inside.) shows an etching of the Soldier’s National Cemetery at Gettysburg and makes an eye-catching little souvenir of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Stanhopes or Stanho-scopes are optical devices that enable the viewing of microphotographs. A Stanhope lens is a simple, one-piece microscope invented by Charles, the third Earl of Stanhope. It is a cylinder of glass with each end curved outwards, one being more convex than the other. Because its construction is simple and economical, it was popular in the 19th century. In 1857, René Dagron modified the lens by keeping one curved end to refract light while sectioning the other end flat and locating it at the focal plane of the curved side. Dagron used the modified Stanhope lens to mount microscopic pictures.    [AD]

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