Suter serial numbers and dates.

[Steven Tribe]

Suter's products have always been of special interest to me, especialy the large fast Euroskop type.
There is, apparently, a dearth of catalogues and uncertainty about serial numbers and date of production.

I am pretty sure that the data in Lens Vade Mecum is reasonably correct. That is, that Suter were a late starting firm - just before 1890. This is in some contradiction with the date given to Suter Petzvals in auctions and the Dan's article on Petzvals which talks about the 1850's!

Obviously, there are a lot of Suters around and in use, so this won't be an attempt to list all. But there are a few model change markers which might help:

1. The engravings on Petzvals changed at some stage (twice?).
2. The anastigmatic series (I and III) were introduced.
3. The rapid aplanat became series B and the series A (F.6) began.
4. The F.5 rapid aplanat introduced (US F scale and modern F scale).
5. When the licensed Zeiss protars were made.
5. Plasmats introduced.
6. Landscape meniscus production.
7. Stella(r) production.

I thought I could start with making some lists of products with serial numbers based on earlier posts here as well as my own collection. Which could then be added to?

This would be an ideal place for any Suter catalogues to be posted - if anyone has one!