Nickel (?) Hermagis Petzval....

[Emil Schildt]

Just got one of those - dated on the glass to be from 1867

It surely is a shiny thing (I fear somebody have recently polished all the last century off it...)

It is a nice lens, but why nickel?

Show off?

or?

[Sevo]

Perhaps. Or as part of the corrosion proof "tropical" finish of these years. Or as a modernization effort in later years, maybe to add some more glamour, or to hide the fact that some restored part was re-made in different coloured brass - 19th century cameras and parts had some resurgence as photographers shop and studio decorations in the seventies.

[Steven Tribe]

It is made of nickel so Emil could do experiments in 2013 with a magnet to confirm that it is weakly magnectic!

It will be surprise if it is made of "The devil's copper" - the original German name for nickel.

[Emil Schildt]

It is made of nickel so Emil could do experiments in 2013 with a magnet to confirm that it is weakly magnectic!

It will be surprise if it is made of "The devil's copper" - the original German name for nickel.

:rolleyes:

So if not the devils copper, then what?

Is Sevo right? faking beauty?

EDIT: NOT magnetic...

[alex from holland]

Hermagis did sold Nickel versions. Maybe at that time it was more exclusively?
As the brass versions were varnished I don't think it has something to do with tropical versions.

[Sevo]

Hermagis did sold Nickel versions. Maybe at that time it was more exclusively?


In 1867 it would have been quite exclusive - probably not out of reach for a maker of optical/scientific instruments, but not yet a everyday technology. If the lens were a decade younger, it might have been the fashion of the year - large scale industrial plating started in the mid to late 1870's, so plating probably was massively hip around then.

[goamules]

I like it. I've seen a lot of lenses, and I've seen very few from the 1840s to the 1890s in nickel. I have one, perhaps 1869, American. I'd say based on my experience, only 1 out of 75 were nickel originally. Some were done later, as probably your Hermagis. I've never seen a nickel Hermagis, and I've had a bunch.

There was a period when Nickel plating was somewhat popular on guns, woodstove furnishing, and a lot of things around the 1870s I believe. But nickel lenses were mostly American, that I've seen. Here is one of my Willards.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3450/5756502184_acbf1ec0bb_z.jpg

[Steven Tribe]

Are we talking about German Silver which was the old name for various alloys of copper and nickel (plus things like zink) rather than 100% nickel?

[Sevo]

Are we talking about German Silver which was the old name for various alloys of copper and nickel (plus things like zink) rather than 100% nickel?

You mean solid German Silver? It looks a little too blue for that (the alloys from that period are yellowish), but that might of course be a issue of the picture. Solid German Silver would be more in period than platings, and much less odd than solid Nickel - but I would not even exclude the latter, 19th lens makers did make some strange material choices (like Voigtländer making the barrels on some of their top price lenses from Aluminium while that was still a rare and precious metal).

[Vincent Pidone]

Maybe at that time it was more exclusively?

Yes.

Now we think of brass (with wood) as the class act, but 100 years ago (and earlier) brass was the second choice.

The top of the line would likely be nickel plated: metallic nickel, not "german silver."

To a casual observer it can be mistaken for chrome.

I think that those of you familiar with the old catalogs could confirm that nickel plating on the camera brass was a premium item.

[goamules]

I don't think any lens would have been able to be nickel plated prior to 1869 when the process became more robust.

Dr I. Adams of the United States patented a nickel ammonium sulphate bath in 1869...Dr. Adams engaged in an aggressive marketing campaign for his solution in the United States and Europe, resulting in a near universal acceptance by industrial countries. See Nickel and Chromium Plating
By John Keith Dennis, Tony Eugene

[Sevo]

Dr I. Adams of the United States patented a nickel ammonium sulphate bath in 1869...Dr. Adams engaged in an aggressive marketing campaign for his solution in the United States and Europe, resulting in a near universal acceptance by industrial countries. http://www.thomasnet.com/articles/metals-metal-products/nickel-plating-history

Yep - but that, along with the Siemens generators needed for large scale plating, came a few years too late to affect a French 1867 lens in its production. That lens was either plated later on in its life, or using some (considerably) more expensive method...

[Steven Tribe]

I was a bit sceptical about the date - there being no Waterhouse stops. But Corrado has lots of illustrations of this convertible type. He shows a 60's which has obviously been converted to WHS as well as 4 other versions born with stops but with reversed engravings in relation to the drive!
Your engraving design matches perfectly the "ca. 1862" one at 9,804.

[Emil Schildt]

I'll try to make better images, but there's a waterhouse stop, for sure..

[Amedeus]

+1 ... this looks like a relative "modern" nickel finish look to me ...
... Or as a modernization effort in later years, maybe to add some more glamour... (snip) ...- 19th century cameras and parts had some resurgence as photographers shop and studio decorations in the seventies.

[Steven Tribe]

For those of you that don't have the book, here is the much large convertible Hermagis with the original reverse engraving and the modifcation to a Waterhouse slot system.

[alex from holland]

My small book says that Nickel versions were available from 1888 and aluminium versions on special request from 1914......

[Amedeus]

Plating is around since the first quarter of the 19th century with nickel plating starting around 1837-9. The Dr Adams process from 1869 produced a "dull" satin finish. Bright nickel plating is a development after Watts in turn improved the nickel plating process in 1916. The bright nickel plating process is relatively "new" ... not exactly sure when the brighteners became available ...

[E. von Hoegh]

I'll try to make better images, but there's a waterhouse stop, for sure..

I noticed that brass does not show in the engraving, so either it's solid nickel (or a nickel alloy, it doesn't take much nickel to color an alloy silver) or it was plated after it was engraved.
Is brass exposed anywhere, say on the flange threads?

[goamules]

Plating is around since the first quarter of the 19th century with nickel plating starting around 1837-9. The Dr Adams process from 1869 produced a "dull" satin finish. Bright nickel plating is a development after Watts in turn improved the nickel plating process in 1916. The bright nickel plating process is relatively "new" ... not exactly sure when the brighteners became available ...

None of the Adams process nickel Colt 1870s-1880s revolvers I've seen are dull! Nor the nickle plating on old potbelly stoves, steam guages, etc. The 1870s Nickle was very shiny, based on how much the underlying steel or base metal was polished. Here is one:

http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/14389/14554333_2.jpg

In "A STUDY OF THE COLT SINGLE ACTION REVOLVER" John Kopec details how, in June 1874, the State of Virginia requested the Ordnance Department to issue Virginia several hundred revolvers under the Militia Act. Virginia then sold the un-issued revolvers to a broker who re-sold them to Colt. Colt had the revolvers nickel-plated by the Adams Nickel Plating & Manufacturing Co., of South Windom, Connecticut, and fitted with ivory grips to distinguish them from government contract Single Action Cavalry revolvers. http://www.icollector.com/Outstanding-Documented-Ainsworth-Inspected-Nickel-Plated-U-S-Colt-Cavalry-Model-Revolver-with-Iv_i14554333

[Sevo]

None of the Adams process nickel Colt 1870s-1880s revolvers I've seen are dull! Nor the nickle plating on old potbelly stoves, steam guages, etc. The 1870s Nickle was very shiny, based on how much the underlying steel or base metal was polished.

No - that is the other way around. Pre WWI nickel platings can be glossy, but they were deposited dull and had to be polished (and to be thick enough that the polishing did not wear them through), almost regardless of the surface below. Later processes could create platings more shiny than the substrate they are on, so they were generally made on a polished base, as the final step.

Given that this lens seems to be glossy down to the engraved lettering (and moreover precedes the time when nickel plating lens size objects became feasible), it can't have been plated at the time of its making - if that should, against all intuition, really be the original finish, it must be solid Nickel (or some type of German Silver). Far more likely is that it was plated long after its production, anywhere within the last 100 years.

[goamules]

Good forensic analysis, professor! I never thought of looking at the engraving plating. I agree, as I said in my first post; never seen a nickel Hermagis Petzval, and it was done later.

[Steven Tribe]

Back to the lens, proper Emil!

Have you discovered how to unscrew the main barrel into 2 parts?