Help Identifying an old Century Camera co. lens please

[Shen45]

I got a few lenses today for a "job lot" price and one of them is a bit of a curiosity to me.

It is marked as a Century Plan [something -- cannot read] I think it is Panatic and underneath that is Series 111

On the shutter face is Rauber and Wollensak and below that Centurry Camera co.

It is marked as covering 6-1/2 x 8-1/2 with the two lens elements on the shutter but each element is marked 23" [front] and 17" [rear]

Does anyone know the focal length of the two elements combined and perhaps an aperure?

The glass is amazingly clean.

The aperture scale goes from 4 to 512.

The shutter nearly works.

[Jim Galli]

Steve, it's probably the one in this page (http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/wollensakcate/p18.html) of the 1912 Wollensak catalog.

17 1/2" 23 1/2" and 10 1/2" combined. Rapid Rectilinear. F16 is f16 and from there go normal stops on modern scale for each number. ie. 8 on that scale is our f11, 4 is our f8 32 is our 22 etc.

I just got a junk box last night too. Some goodies :D. 3 of them so far are petzval and one is dated on the side of the glass as 1864.

[Shen45]

Thanks for the info and link Jim. I remounted the elements into an Ilex 3 shutter last night as the original shutter wasn't working properly. My junk box had the century, a magic lantern [about 6"], a Petzval, again about 6" focus and a most unusual 5" "Quick acting portrait lens". It has the number 8 engraved on the barrel. The glass on all of the lenses is remarkable. No separation, no fungus and only minor cleaning marks.