Goerz-Berlin never made "gold" lenses, did they?

[Leigh]

Hi David,

Just to add a bit more confusion...

The lens I showed above says Goerz Optical Co. Inc. DAGOR 8 1/4" f:6,8 on the front.
The inch dimension and Inc. would indicate a US company, but the comma as a decimal separator is European.
It says "Made in Switzerland" on the back. The front and back cells have matching serial numbers.
It's mounted in a silver-rim Copal 1 shutter.


- Leigh

[David Lindquist]

Hi David,

Just to add a bit more confusion...

The lens I showed above says Goerz Optical Co. Inc. DAGOR 8 1/4" f:6,8 on the front.
The inch dimension and Inc. would indicate a US company, but the comma as a decimal separator is European.
It says "Made in Switzerland" on the back. The front and back cells have matching serial numbers.
It's mounted in a silver-rim Copal 1 shutter.


- Leigh

Egad, yet more fascinating minutiae. I have a record of a Dagor spotting on ebay of an 8 1/4 inch GD Dagor marked Goerz Optical Co. that was also marked on the rear cell as having been made in Switzerland. I didn't note specifically if "inc." was included or if it was marked "6.8" or "6,8". My guess, let me emphasize GUESS, is these represent early Swiss production after the acquisition of G.O.C. by Schneider Corp. of America and how this line was eventually to be labeled hadn't been settled.
David

[Mark Sawyer]

As long as we've got some interested parties here, I have an oddly marked little Dagor that perhaps someone can shed light on. Its engraving reads:

C.P. GOERZ BERLIN DAGOR Series III f:6.8 8 1/2 in. No. RS507

The back element is engraved simply "507", and yes, it has an "s" at the end of "Series". I've just never seen a serial number like that on any other Dagor...

[TheDeardorffGuy]

Years ago I was contacted by the son in law of Hans Rotterweise (SP?) Hans was the B&J repairman / Lens polisher / Lens coater. When he retired he had no pension so the Drucker gave him literally hundreds of lenses and shutters. There were coffee cans full of Dagor elements wrapped in tissue with serial numbers from Goerz. My first trip I took about 150 Dagors from 6in to 14in. Most of these were marked BERLIN DAGOR SERIES III. I did CLA on the shutters and glass and listed them in Shutterbug. Sold around 1 dozen and were ready to pay the son in law when the new owners started calling telling me the lenses: A. Would not focus B changed focus with a change of f stop C Had different areas of focus. Yikes! I refunded all but 2 customers money upon return of the lenses. Those 2 were fine. I set up my V11 Deardorff with a universal Iris flange and started testing. Out of 150 lenses there were 20 that were OK. Just 20!. I returned all of them and took about 50 more. This time I took what looked like genuine german built lenses. These also had issues. They had been reground and polished and not very well. The cans full of elements had note stating they were "second quality".
I returned these and washed my hands of the whole deal. I heard he sold the whole lot. Never trust a BERLIN DAGOR SERIES III. Test first

[TheDeardorffGuy]

Egad, yet more fascinating minutiae. I have a record of a Dagor spotting on ebay of an 8 1/4 inch GD Dagor marked Goerz Optical Co. that was also marked on the rear cell as having been made in Switzerland. I didn't note specifically if "inc." was included or if it was marked "6.8" or "6,8". My guess, let me emphasize GUESS, is these represent early Swiss production after the acquisition of G.O.C. by Schneider Corp. of America and how this line was eventually to be labeled hadn't been settled.
David

I do not think Schneider ground and polished any of the glass they sold with the "New Dagors" There were too many that were not as sharp as they should have been. I think they assembled new old stock lenses into new mounts.

[TheDeardorffGuy]

I used to be VP of B&J. The owner George Drucker, bought the original German Goerz company from Zeiss (it a long story because of WWI). All of the Goerz made lenses were re-named Goerz-Berlin as were the B&J manufactured Goerz lenses (yes B&J made lenses in Chicago for about 70 years) based on the tooling and information purchased from Goerz as well as there own designs and several other lens types by contract (including some very famous soft focus). Also, B&J bought many lenses after WWII using their own names or B&J. I ran this division for several years as the B&J Lens Bank.

Goerz lenses from 19th and early 20th century, became briefly part of Zeiss because of WWI, sold to B&J in about 1927 or so.

Goerz lenses made in the USA by arrangement with original Goerz prior to WWI. Ownership was changed several times. Regional sales manager needed 6 Dagors but the bezels had not been plated (black) so Harry said send them anyway, I just changed them to the improved Golden Dagors.

Goerz lenses (Goerz-Berlin) legally purchased by B&J in USA

In the 1970's Schneider bought the remnants (paper work only) of the American Goerz, re-designed the ones they liked and created the "Gold Dot", and the "Blue Dot Tricor" that I can remember. There was a very long waiting list for these lenses which were originally made in Switzerland by Kern, I don't know if Schneider ever actually made them although some of the Kern built were made, but they said Schneider no matter where they were made.

Lynn

Kollmorgan was in there somewhere too. I thought they owned Goerz American Optical for a while.

[John Schneider]

I have an oddly marked little Dagor that perhaps someone can shed light on. Its engraving reads:

C.P. GOERZ BERLIN DAGOR Series III f:6.8 8 1/2 in. No. RS507

The back element is engraved simply "507", and yes, it has an "s" at the end of "Series". I've just never seen a serial number like that on any other Dagor...

Lenses with a s/n beginning with "R" and then 6 numerals were process Dagors, of the same design as the Trigor, Argyle, etc., and had apertures beginning at f10 or so (mine is packed away). They didn't say "Dagor" and certainly weren't marked f6.8. Goerz process lenses that had a s/n beginning with "S" and then 6 numerals were Artars. This doesn't shed any light on your lens, but Goerz did use serial numbers beginning with "R" or "S", but I never heard of an "RS" until now...

[Scotty230358]

I have a 120mm f6.8 Berlin Series III in the same shutter. After posting my confusion about its provenance on this forum the final conclusion was that it was a B&J remount. Its a sharp lens but not as contrasty as my 125mm Fujinon. I paid less than $200 for it and for the money got a perfectly usable extremely compact wide angle lens for those times when I was hill walking and wanted to minimise weight. The only thing I had to do was have a custom filter ring made as the filter threads on the lens were very non standard.

I would not pay nearly $600 for a Berlin Series III thats for sure.

[E. von Hoegh]

As long as we've got some interested parties here, I have an oddly marked little Dagor that perhaps someone can shed light on. Its engraving reads:

C.P. GOERZ BERLIN DAGOR Series III f:6.8 8 1/2 in. No. RS507

The back element is engraved simply "507", and yes, it has an "s" at the end of "Series". I've just never seen a serial number like that on any other Dagor...

Another B&J. The clue is "Series" on a purportedly German lens.

[David Lindquist]

Kollmorgan was in there somewhere too. I thought they owned Goerz American Optical for a while.

Kollmorgen bought Goerz Optical Co., Inc. sometime between October 1967 and August 1970. My evidence for this is a price list dated 10/10/67 titled "Goerz Optical Co. Inc." and a price list dated 8/1/70 titled "Photographic Products Division Goerz Optical Co. Inc. A Subsidiary of Kollmorgen".

David