I'd been looking for a pinkham & Smith for years, I gave up hope of acquiring this lens several times, after looking for 2yrs, I purchased the Cooke PS945, later, somebody I know, who knows I wanted the Pinkham & Smith offered me one for sale, one side of me was telling me 'pass', the other side of me was saying, 'he says this lens is the best example of a Pinkham & Smith he's ever seen, you won't get this chance again, ever, GET IT!!

I got it, the glass was 'AS NEW', the lens has been extremely well taken care of, but I began to find out how difficult this lens was going to be to use, compared to what I was used to, it was suggested that I would need a front mounted shutter, where you manually actuate the shutter by squeezing a bulb, a front mounted shutter was also a 'hitch in my gettalong' as far as filtration was concerned.

Adam Dau of S.K. Grimes was nice enough to take the time to discuss the possible alternatives to a front mounted, bulb operated shutter. Adam gave me some figures, the inner diameter of the Ilex#5 shutter(approx. 2.5") was going to give me F4.5 with the Pinkham in it's remounted configuration, and he could give me an 95mm accessory filter thread on the front cell to use with filters I already have.

Part of me did not want to mess with a classic, but after thinking about it, I went ahead and purchased an Ilex#5 shutter, and gave Adam the 'go ahead' to overhaul the shutter and to remount the lens. A pleasant surprise was the fact that despite the F4.5 engraving on the lens, it was actually F4.0, and Adam advised me that remounting the lens into the Ilex#5 would give me F4.5.

I'm including this shot of the Pinkham mounted in the Ilex#5, the front accessory thread is 95mm, the front cell is simply a straight cylinder, the lens has a 'retro' look, Adam didn't skimp on metal and the lens as a 'beefy', 'tanklike' feel and heft, the rear cell is conical with a break to a cylindrical shape, this shot is the polaroid I took to check final lighting and framing, I'll post the shots I took with FP4 of this shot and the rear cell next week, Adam was able to mount the humongous Ilex#5 onto a 4" toyo lensboard, so I can shoot 4x5(everything's flush with it mounted on my Toyo AII), or mount the lens into an 8x10 adaptor for 8x10. I'm now glad I did this, and I'm happy with the way the lens now looks, and I can use it w/studio strobes w/relative ease.

Jim Galli, I hope U catch this.

Have a great 4th of July weekend.