Velostigmat Series II & Protar VII Questions

[Fotoguy20d]

I just received my latest lot of large format folly.

I was basically bidding on a Series VII Protar in Alphax (which turned out to be a very nice 7" combined (13 3/4" and 11 3/16"), and the shutter works quite nicely and is scaled for all three focal lengths). There was also a 4x5 Tessar Ic in barrel and a mystery lens in Betax. The Betax sadly turned out to be pretty much trash (missing the shutter lever), although once it warmed up, the aperture blades moved although a bit stiffly so not a total loss. But, the lens turned out to be a 7" f4.5 Velostigmat Series II in nice shape. From looking at Camera Eccentric (admittedly, I didn't look in every Wolly catalog), I saw a 7 1/2, covering 5x7 but not a 7" (which is what the lens clearly says). It looks to be Tessar construction? There's no soft focus control, but is there a way to do so manually? Is this achieved by spacing the front cells or spacing the front pair from the rear pair? It fit perfectly into the Alphax shutter for my 159mm f12.5 8x10 WA Wolly, and the spacing seemed right. I'm guessing it would also fit into the Alphax that came with the Protar, if I can manage to remove the rear adapter ring?

Does anyone know approximately how to date the Protar? Serial numbers for both elements were in the 2 millions. Shutter is most likely a later mod - the scales are on a glued on plate instead of engraved into the face of the shutter?

Thanks,
Dan

[David Lindquist]

I just received my latest lot of large format folly.

I was basically bidding on a Series VII Protar in Alphax (which turned out to be a very nice 7" combined (13 3/4" and 11 3/16"), and the shutter works quite nicely and is scaled for all three focal lengths). There was also a 4x5 Tessar Ic in barrel and a mystery lens in Betax. The Betax sadly turned out to be pretty much trash (missing the shutter lever), although once it warmed up, the aperture blades moved although a bit stiffly so not a total loss. But, the lens turned out to be a 7" f4.5 Velostigmat Series II in nice shape. From looking at Camera Eccentric (admittedly, I didn't look in every Wolly catalog), I saw a 7 1/2, covering 5x7 but not a 7" (which is what the lens clearly says). It looks to be Tessar construction? There's no soft focus control, but is there a way to do so manually? Is this achieved by spacing the front cells or spacing the front pair from the rear pair? It fit perfectly into the Alphax shutter for my 159mm f12.5 8x10 WA Wolly, and the spacing seemed right. I'm guessing it would also fit into the Alphax that came with the Protar, if I can manage to remove the rear adapter ring?

Does anyone know approximately how to date the Protar? Serial numbers for both elements were in the 2 millions. Shutter is most likely a later mod - the scales are on a glued on plate instead of engraved into the face of the shutter?

Thanks,
Dan

Is your Protar made by Bausch & Lomb? The thread here:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=54143

has in the first post a link to years of production/serial numbers for B & L lenses. Unfortunately, as you will see, this information doesn't work for B & L lenses with serial numbers in the 2 millions (nor for my B & L Seies V Protar, s/n 3,217,xxx). Some subsequent posts in this thread report the same sort of problem and there are suggestions that the OP may have left out a digit in his table. Unfortunately the OP never replied to these concerns.
David Lindquist

[Fotoguy20d]

Thanks for that link. It also causes problems for my other series VIIa, which consists of two 13 3/4 elements - one has a 2 million-ish number, the other around 300,000. If the digit slip occured, the question is where. Based on the premise that it occured very early on, if my 300,000 lens is reflected by the 30,000 number on that chart, it would be around 1900, which I suppose is possible.

Dan

[Steven Tribe]

1900 is possible.
Series VIIa combinations are often now made up of component series VII which have been made purchased in different decades. Quite a lot of single VII were sold individually as well symmetrical (yours) and non-symmetrical pairs as VIIa.

It would be more doubtful if one was marked in inches and the other in centimeters! A well known London dealer once listed a Ross Protar with the rear element marked in cms. A Ross(Zeiss) / Zeiss (or Krauss?) or dubious performance.

[Mark Sawyer]

But, the lens turned out to be a 7" f4.5 Velostigmat Series II in nice shape. From looking at Camera Eccentric (admittedly, I didn't look in every Wolly catalog), I saw a 7 1/2, covering 5x7 but not a 7" (which is what the lens clearly says). It looks to be Tessar construction? There's no soft focus control, but is there a way to do so manually?

Yes, it's a Tessar. For info on modifying the spacing for soft focus, see Jim Galli's excellent work:

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/BandLTessar/11X14BandLTessar.html