Wollensak nomenclature

[Bruce Watson]

What are the differences between the various series? IOW, what's the difference between a Series III and a series VII? And all the steps before, in between, and after?

Also, is there a reliable way to tell which of the Wollies are coated (single or multi) without being able to hold them in your hand and look at the reflections? IOW, is there a marking on the lens itself that indicates a coated lens? Do I have to go by serial number? Did they start coating with a particular series maybe?

So I guess what I'm asking is where to find a primer on the Wollensak lenses?

[Toyon]

All the details are available at www.cameraeccentric.com. Look under the "information" tab and scroll down to the Wollensak catalogues. . Thanks to Seth for making the information free and accessible. If I remember correctly, Series 1a is a tripe convertible anastigmat series. Series 2 is their modified Tessar series. 3 is ultra wide angles. 4 is a slower version of series 2. In addition they made modified Petzvals, rapid rectilinears and persicopic soft focus lenses.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

What little I know about Wollensaks is limited to what I've discovered in the past couple of months since buying a circa 1947 Meridian 45B that happened to come equipped with a pretty sweet little 135mm f/4.7 Raptar in a Rapax shutter.

Don't know about other Series Velostigmats or earlier, but mine takes a Series VI-- which simply means it hasn't got a filter thread and takes a slip on or clamp on hood in Series VI size (38mm, I believe it works out to be. Managed to score a nice little original Wolly 5135A Sunshade and Filter Adapter that's also engraved with "Size 6", don't know if there may the start of confusion between Series VI and Size 6?). Must have been some other "Series" lens designations that also crept in there somewhere, too ;-)

The post-war Raptars with the "W" in a circle are all Wollycoated. My 135mm has a dot that's lavender, which is Wollensak branding for magnesium flouride single-coating. (It seems to be hard coating applied in a vacuum chamber; my 60 year old lens example is scratch-free with no loss of coating, is not flare prone, and has excellent color transmission for sharp Velvia transparencies, even shooting into the sun). Earlier non-coated versions of the same lens were supposedly labelled Velostigmats.

The only Wollys that I've ever heard as being rumored to be multicoated are the Raptar Pro series that enjoyed a short run in the early '70's, allegedly such a marketing flop against German and Japanese optics of the day as to result in there still being new old stock ones still offered for sale as recently as this year. (Can anyone confirm? Did these have purple W-in-a-circle Wollycoated dots?)

BTW, the Rapax shutters these are found in are considered among the best ever made. Mine is very consistently within an 1/8 stop of the rated speed (should say, below 1/125, that is-- and only after a couple of Ronsonol soaks and a re-lube). Which is a good thing because the lens cells won't fit in any modern shutter...

[Bruce Watson]

The post-war Raptars with the "W" in a circle are all Wollycoated. My 135mm has a dot that's lavender, which is Wollensak branding for magnesium flouride single-coating.

Where does the lavender dot occur on the lens? Dumb question maybe, but I've never seen one.

[Bruce Watson]

All the details are available at www.cameraeccentric.com. Look under the "information" tab and scroll down to the Wollensak catalogues. . Thanks to Seth for making the information free and accessible. If I remember correctly, Series 1a is a tripe convertible anastigmat series. Series 2 is their modified Tessar series. 3 is ultra wide angles. 4 is a slower version of series 2. In addition they made modified Petzvals, rapid rectilinears and persicopic soft focus lenses.

Holy cats! What a treasure trove! Thanks to Seth indeed; this one gets a bookmark. What a lot of reference material. And just what I was looking for. Many thank Toyon.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Others have referred to the elusive Pro Raptars as "Purple Dot", so I took the same license. In any event what I was calling the "lavender dot" is just the paint color in the Wollycoat "W-in-a-Circle" emblem-- which appears on the bezel ring around the front element. Could be wrong but I don't believe it's a separate dot on the Pro Raptars, either.

And I too can only second the cameraeccentric.com link as being a superb resource- (dang, Toyon beat me to the draw, til I'd posted!).

I don't have time to buzz through all the earlier offerings on cameraeccentric.com just now (pages load slowly), but seem to recall that the Pro Raptars were the only modern plasmat designs Wollensak ever produced? Started looking into these as many said the Raptar being an old design would be blown away by anything modern (I work only in color). Not so sure about that-- stopped down my Tessar designed Raptar 135 is seems wicked sharp, at least until you start looking hard at corner resolution at 8X. My 210 Caltar II-N (rebadged Rodenstock APO Sironar N) doesn't seem any sharper- except in the corners.

[Bruce Watson]

The Camera Eccentric website's store of catalogs (http://www.cameraeccentric.com/info.html) is very informative. It seems that I was asking the wrong question. The various series are different lens designs. I've got that now, I hope.

So what do the various names mean? What's the difference between a Raptar Series III and a Velostigmat Series III? I'm thinking that they are for different intents maybe. Like the Veritar is a portrait lens, yes? But Raptars seem to be both general purpose capture lenses and enlarging lenses. So I'm still somewhat confused. I'll keep reading...

[Dan Fromm]

Multi-coated? Wolly lenses? Probably none.

Coated? Post-1946 or perhaps -47, yes. Earlier, probably not.

I say this because I have an uncoated 3"/4.5 Series II Velostigmat (pre-WWII trade name) in a Rapax (post-WWII trade name) shutter. The two are in an original factory box, seem to be a shutter/lens destined for some 6x6 camera or other. The box makes me doubt that someone outside the Wollensak factory put the two together.

I believe that Series II Velostigmats are f/4.5 tessar types, were sold after the great renaming as jes' plain Raptars.

Lavender dot? I have one Pro Raptar taking lens, four Enlarging Pro Raptars. No dots on any of 'em and their little CW symbols are filled with white paint. All single-coated.

Remember that what we call multicoating arrived in the mid-'70s and that Wollensak was out of business by then.

[Bruce Watson]

Others have referred to the elusive Pro Raptars as "Purple Dot", so I took the same license. In any event what I was calling the "lavender dot" is just the paint color in the Wollycoat "W-in-a-Circle" emblem. Could be wrong but I don't believe it's a separate dot on either.

I'm seeing references to "Wocoat" as "an anti-reflection hard coating." Although I have to admit I like your "Wollycoat" name better. ;)

[Bruce Watson]

I believe that Series II Velostigmats are f/4.5 tessar types, were sold after the great renaming as jes' plain Raptars.

Interesting. What is the "great renaming" of which you speak? This might be the enlightenment on naming conventions I'm looking for.

[Darren Kruger]

Interesting. What is the "great renaming" of which you speak? This might be the enlightenment on naming conventions I'm looking for.

Sometime after WWII, the Velostigmat lenses were renamed Raptars (the series numbers stayed the same.) I think the Rapax shutters came out around the same time (they still kept the Alphax shutter line.)

-Darren

[Dan Fromm]

Interesting. What is the "great renaming" of which you speak? This might be the enlightenment on naming conventions I'm looking for.Darren nailed it. Out with "Velostigmat," in with "Raptar." AFAIK, nothing of significance changed.

Kodak had a similar great renaming at the same time. Out with "Kodak Anastigmat," in with "Ektar." Also Anaston, Anastar, and no doubt others.

Marketing mimicry?

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Baaaah-- branding. What's in a name? Woolycoating, Wo-coating, sheep in wolf's coating-- all looks the same to me.

(Gotta admire the pluck of a fella that uses his last name for a business, especially if the guy's name be "Wollensak")

[Vaughn]

I have a "Graphic Raptar Wide Field Lens" (210mm/6.8). Could not find it in the various literature on the linked site...perhaps it was later than the latest pamphlet on there. Nice lens for 8x10, though.

Vaughn

[Ernest Purdum]

When Wollensak changed names from "Velostigmat" to ":Raptar", the Series designations remained the same, so a Series III lens is the same basic design by either name. A Raptar will, however, probably be coated and a Velostigmat not. This is particularly important on a Series III (or IIIa) because they have eight air to glass surfaces.

[jnantz]

The post-war Raptars with the "W" in a circle are all Wollycoated. My 135mm has a dot that's lavender, which is Wollensak branding for magnesium flouride single-coating. (It seems to be hard coating applied in a vacuum chamber; my 60 year old lens example is scratch-free with no loss of coating, is not flare prone, and has excellent color transmission for sharp Velvia transparencies, even shooting into the sun). Earlier non-coated versions of the same lens were supposedly labelled Velostigmats.

The only Wollys that I've ever heard as being rumored to be multicoated are the Raptar Pro series that enjoyed a short run in the early '70's, allegedly such a marketing flop against German and Japanese optics of the day as to result in there still being new old stock ones still offered for sale as recently as this year. (Can anyone confirm? Did these have purple W-in-a-circle Wollycoated dots?)


hi ivan

i had one of the coated yellow dot air corps versions of the 90mm wollensak raptars.
it was a sweet lens, and i wish i never sold it, but i was broke
and well ... the rest is history.

i have never really known, except for rumor and inuendo what the
dots meant, if anything. someone who knew a bit about lenses told me years ago
there was the purple dot, the yellow dot and the two dots together.

have fun with your lens ...

john

[Mark Sampson]

About names... I used to have a bound set of "Popular Photography" from 1945. In one issue, a Wollensak ad in the back pages announced the results of a contest to re-name the Velostigmat line of lenses. I don't remember what the prize was for submitting the winning name, or who came up with it, but 'Raptar' was the name that replaced 'Velostigmat'. So a good guess would be that 'Velostigmat' lenses are pre-1946. Last year or so there was a very long thread here about trying to correlate Wollensak serial#s to year of manufacture... I posted the same news as above there, I think. Too bad I gave away the bound Pop Photos. (It would seem that Mr. Fromm's lens noted above supports this idea).