E&H.T. Anthony & Co. Lens

[ic-racer]

Just got a cool lens from my brother (he goes to a lot of flea markets, etc). He is always on the lookout for cool stuff and he got this for a few dollars.


I am just starting to research this lens but I thought I would post it here for your entertainment and thoughts.

This is a brass single element lens. It is inscribed as follows:

first line: E&H.T.ANTHONY & CO.
second line: SINGLE 2 .ACHROMATIC

the "2" is in a different font, like it was stamped on separatly. There is a spurious 'period' before the "A" in ACHROMATIC

Is the "2" diopters? Though I think I recall "1" diopter being one meter (1000mm) so 2 would be 500mm. Could be 2 'decimeters' but I get a focal length of 2.6 decimeters (260 mm).


The front has a stop wheel that is unmarked as far as I can tell at this point.

The lens assembly screws into the mounting flange.

The front stop piece unscrews and the rear element unscrews, so it unscrews into 4 pieces.

From my simple 'optical bench test' (ie holding it up to the window) it has a big image circle (or well, 'circle of light', I have yet to see if any useful image is out there at the edges).

Just from a few minutes on the internet I came up with E&HG Anthony as a printer? of Civil war photographs. Also, I found an ad in 1864 'Harper's Weekly' for the company:

Harper's Ad 1864:

E. & H, T. ANTHONY & CO., Manufacturers of Photographic Materials,
WHOLESALE AND RETAIL 501 BROADWAY N. Y. In addition to our main business of PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS, we are Headquarters for the following, viz: STEREOICOPES & STEREOSCOPIC VIEWS, Of these we have an immense assortment, including War Scenes

(wow, isn't it great someone scanned this old magazine with character recognition software!)

[Ole Tjugen]

Most lenses of that age were marked with the number in the series, not the focal length. About 260mm sounds about right for a #2, of just about any type. #2 often means that it was made to cover 5x7" - but there were more exceptions to that rule than lenses that acually follow something approaching the rule.

If it's achromatic, it's two cemented lens elements.

That looks like a fine little old landscape lens!

[ic-racer]

Most lenses of that age were marked with the number in the series, not the focal length. About 260mm sounds about right for a #2, of just about any type. #2 often means that it was made to cover 5x7" - but there were more exceptions to that rule than lenses that acually follow something approaching the rule.

If it's achromatic, it's two cemented lens elements.

That looks like a fine little old landscape lens!

This is great! thanks for the info. Now that I have a closer look at the lens, I can see three reflections. A much larger reflection from the rear face (least curved of all) a bright small reflection from the front face and a fainter small reflection which must be coming from the lens/lens interface. I can't see the lens edge and the glue is perfectly clear, so there was no other way to know that this is a doublet.

[Glenn Thoreson]

Achromatic meniscus landscape lens. I have a really old Conley lens that has unmarked wheel stops. How is a fellow supposed to know where where to set it?
You should try your lens. Some of thes old lenses are quite surprising. Nice find.

[ic-racer]

Achromatic meniscus landscape lens. I have a really old Conley lens that has unmarked wheel stops. How is a fellow supposed to know where where to set it?
You should try your lens. Some of thes old lenses are quite surprising. Nice find.

Just got done with the initial clean up. The lens has no fungus or element separation. It does have some "cleaning marks" from all the years, but this would be e-bay 'Like New' glass. I held it in front of the 8x10 Century's lensboard to project an image on the ground glass and WOW, I was expecting a fuzzy image. It is sharp!

As suggested the image circle looks good for 5x7 so I am expecting some beautiful vignetted 8x10 images.

You guys know a lot more about brass lenses than I (this is my first) so I had to check up in my 1911 "Encyclopedia of Photography". As you all pointed out, the design with the aperture unit shielding the front element is a 'landscape' design, as is the achromat design. Cool, the "Enclycopedia" also had a formula for blacking the brass (the parts that are supposed to be black, that is), though I think I will just use flat black enamel, as it is easily removed with thinner, should I ever change my mind.

It also told me that the 'achromatic' lens was synonomous with an 'actinic' lens. That is, one that accuratly focuses the 'actinic' or 'chemically active' light rays. These would be in the BLUE range, because at the time, one theory was that the RED rays were not chemically active toward the emulsion.

Most of the reports of Anthony I have found on the internet associate this company with STEREO images. This type of lens would not be used in a stereo camera, or would it? Any one know?

[jnantz]

Achromatic meniscus landscape lens. I have a really old Conley lens that has unmarked wheel stops. How is a fellow supposed to know where where to set it?
You should try your lens. Some of thes old lenses are quite surprising. Nice find.

hi glenn

you could measure the hole diameters in the wheel, divide into the focal length
to find the realitive fstop and go from there ...

have fun

[Peter K]

E. & H, T. ANTHONY & CO., Manufacturers of Photographic Materials,
WHOLESALE AND RETAIL 501 BROADWAY N. Y. In addition to our main business of PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS, we are Headquarters for the following, viz: STEREOICOPES & STEREOSCOPIC VIEWS, Of these we have an immense assortment, including War Scenes

There is a link to the history of Anthony & Co NYC, later Ansco Binghampton http://www.fiberq.com/cam/anth.htm
and to your lens http://www.fiberq.com/cam/anthony/vincent.htm

Peter K

[ic-racer]

There is a link to the history of Anthony & Co NYC, later Ansco Binghampton http://www.fiberq.com/cam/anth.htm
and to your lens http://www.fiberq.com/cam/anthony/vincent.htm

Peter K

I should have checked there, thanks for the links!

I guess based on the inscription of the company name on the lens it should be from 1862-1901

[Uli Mayer]

My Anthony Illustrated Catalogue, January 1891, lists such a cone barrel lens under "Anthony's Single Combination Lenses" and says:

(full quote)
For ordinary landscape work these lenses give very brillant effects, fully covering the plates specified. They are the best lenses in the market at the price. All have rotating diaphragms, so that the time of exposure may varied to suit the subject.

No. 0, for 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 plates ...... $ 3.50
No. 1, " 4 x 5 plates .................. $ 3.75
No. 2 " 5 x 8 plates .................. $ 4.50
No. 3 " 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 plates ....... $ 7.00
No. 4 " 8 x 10 plates .............. $ 7.00

(no details given about the lens design)

So your lens' coverage is as Ole said.

[ic-racer]

Thanks for the info on the coverage.

I calculated my f-stops on the f-stop wheel and they fall on the correct logarthmic displacement exactly between the commonly numbered stops, ie 16 [19] 22 [25] 32 [40] 45 [50] 64.


I'm still not shure how I am going to 'shutter' this lens. I may need to rig some neutral density wratten filter into the front assembly so I can get the exposures longer than a couple of seconds. I will probably be shooting this lens at f40. That will give me about 1/8th sec exposure in sunlight (EI 50 film). So I may need a 1.5 ND filter (5 stops).

I noticed the lenses shown on the http://www.fiberq.com site all have the front 'nose' of the lens polished. I polished mine also, but it was very difficult to polish, and now I am convinced that the front nose had been chemically 'blackened' originally.