John Greivenkamp of the College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, curated a display of antique optics dating from the early 1700s through 1900 at the 2009 SPIE Optics+Photonics symposium.  The display included opera glasses, monoculars, and highly-decorated telescopes made out of paper, as part of a larger exhibit housed at the University of Arizona.

These early examples of optics technology are interesting not only from a historical perspective, but from a materials and technology perspective, too.

Greivenkamp shows off some of these unique optics in this video, providing some insights into this great collection of instruments.

Click image or here for streaming video.

More information about the collection of historic telescopes can be viewed at University of Arizona: www.optics.arizona.edu/antiques