Curious bromide plate holders

[Doug Kerr]

I recently purchased at auction a lovely 8x0 Eastman View Camera 2-D (Folmer Graflex manufacture)with a lovely Crown No. 4 tripod. The lot also included a number of film and plate holders of various sizes and types.

One interesting item was a set of several plate holders marked "8x10 BROMIDE" on the top edge and "FOLMER GRAFLEX CORP U.S.A." on the bottom edge.

The holders are single-sided, with a conventional dark slide on the live face. The back has a paneled door that opens on hinges, with two very nice slide locks - all hardware chrome plated. There is a little leather tab, held by a chrome-plated plate, to use to open the door. The holder body is an ebony back.

The plate recess is exactly 8" x 10", and each unit one includes a wood adapter to receive a 5" x 7" plate. (And there were 5x7 sheets of film held in those with masking tape!)

The holders are not the same size as a conventional Graphic-type 8x10 film holder. They are 9-5/8" high (vs. 9-5/16" for the conventional holder) and 12" long to the point from which the dark slide emerges (vs. 11-5/8" for the conventional holder). They have a locating/light seal rib rather wider than on a conventional holder and located nearer the end.

Also included was an even more curious item. This is a wood frame obviously intended to go into the camera back in place of the plate holder. It carries a glass screen, but a clear one (not ground glass). The screen is held by four clips at the edges just as we might find holding a ground glass plate into a spring back focusing plate assembly. The glass has "clipped" corners.

The clear plate has at its center an engraved "graticule" in the form of a cross 2" x 2" in overall size. On the "south and east" legs it carries marks at a spacing of 1/5", and on the "north and west" legs has major division marks at a spacing of 1/5" with minor divisions at a spacing of 1/25". (It may be that the intent is for these to be at 5 mm and 1 mm pitch; the spacing is a little irregular so I can't determine that for certain.)

This item carries no markings, but the ebony finish on the wood, the chrome plated clips, and the consistent dimensions suggests that it is a companion item.

Does any one know just what these might be and what kind of camera they were intended for use with?

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug

[Ernest Purdum]

The holder sounds like it might be a "Sterling". These are usually seen in the 11" X 14" size, but were also made in 8" X 10" and 14" X 17" a long time ago. I believe both double and single-sided holders were made to the same specifications.

The clear plate could be used for aerial image focusing, also called parallax focusing. To use it, you focus a high-power loupe on the cross hairs, then focus the image until a slight sideways movement of your eye doesn't result in any apparent movement of the image in relation to the cross hairs. More commonly, The cross-hairs are on a disc cemented to the back of a normal groundglass. The method is most often used by scientific workers.

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Ernest,

Thank you so much for your insights.

I am familiar with the concept of aerial image focusing (in fact, a split-iamge prism focusing aid draws upon the concept), but had never before seen apparatus for its practice in a vew camera.

Does "Sterling" refer to a type of camera, a type of plate holder, or both?

Thanks again.

Best regards,

Doug

[Ernest Purdum]

So far as I know, which isn't much, Sterling is a tradename I have seen for holders only.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

As I recall, there are particular backs/cameras which work with these sterling holders. I had an 8x10 Folmer a few years back which came with a pile of these. They are nice holders to convert to wet-plate, if you have interest in that.