Help identifying this lens

[Tom Sobota]

I have a lens made by W. Brown in London. Up to now I have been unable to find any references to this maker (or reseller) in books, the VM or in the Net.

The lens is marked as a 10x8 Rapid Rectilinear. The (calculated) focal length is around 276mm, with an aperture (also calculated) of around f7.5.

I wonder if someone on this list has heard of this English lensmaker or reseller. The serial number on the lens (39901) suggests a large volume of business.

Thanks
Tom

[Steven Tribe]

I think you should take the serial number with a pinch of salt!

I can't find him either - it doesn't help that his probable name is William Brown which must be as common as John Smith!

The engraving doesn't look 100% as though it was done by an experienced, habitual craftsman. The spacing of the numbers isn't good and you can see the faint lines which have been drawn in to keep the letters straight. The two "O"s in LONDON are smaller the rest of the letters.

Many dealers (pharmacists, opticians or photographic items) give an address in the engraving. If it is not a dealer lens, then the owner has perhaps given his plain no-name RR an embellishment! Pretty good engraving too. The impossible serial number indicates he had a touch of humour. Owner engraved lenses are as rare as forgeries.

[goamules]

Steven, you should write novels!

[Steven Tribe]

Garrett - it is all facts!

A "Brown of London" that made/sold 39901 lenses never existed!
And I doubt a small photographic equipment outlet would open himself up to ridicule by suggesting this was the 39901 lens he had sold!

Perhaps someone could suggest which engraving layout this has been copied from?
I don't own a Dallmeyer RR (Patent) but assume it says 10x8 and not 8x10?

[goamules]

Garrett - it is all facts!

A "Brown of London" that made/sold 39901 lenses never existed!
And I doubt a small photographic equipment outlet would open himself up to ridicule by suggesting this was the 39901 lens he had sold!

Perhaps someone could suggest which engraving layout this has been copied from?
I don't own a Dallmeyer RR (Patent) but assume it says 10x8 and not 8x10?

You're grasping at straws. Many companies then and now started their serial numbers at a high number. Or a random number. As a matter of fact, I suggest ALL resellers did this in the later wetplate period. No one wanted to be seen as a seller that had only sold 5 lenses, so you'll never see a "Serial No. 5" on later RRs. I betcha.


...The engraving doesn't look 100% as though it was done by an experienced, habitual craftsman. The spacing of the numbers isn't good and you can see the faint lines which have been drawn in to keep the letters straight. The two "O"s in LONDON are smaller the rest of the letters.

Many dealers (pharmacists, opticians or photographic items) give an address in the engraving. If it is not a dealer lens, then the owner has perhaps given his plain no-name RR an embellishment! Pretty good engraving too. The impossible serial number indicates he had a touch of humour. Owner engraved lenses are as rare as forgeries.


And suggesting that someone decided to fake, or engrave his name on a blank lens just "for fun" is equally implausable. You said yourself "individualized" engraving is very rare. Why do you suppose that is?!

You're leading yourself down a suppositional path where each suggestion is based on the previous implausible one; "I can't find W. Brown....he must not be a reseller....The engraving doesns't look like it was done by a craftsman...a reseller would have an expert engraver on staff...so it must have been done by an amateur....The serial number is a high number....this must always relate 1 for 1 to numbers of lenses made....therefore the number must be a lie...." See what I mean?

[IanG]

Garett

It's unlikely 100% genuine as it says 8x10, UK companies all said the long length first so 10x8. We STILL use that nomenclature.

As Steven says the serial numbers too high as well.

I've a lot of original books going back tom that era and Brown is not a London lens maker I've ever heard of either, we may be wrong but the onus is to prove otherwise.

Ian

[goamules]

I think I found W. Brown! He was a nephew of Uncle Earl, who engraved lenses when he wasn't shooting at Yosemite with Ansel Adams. This lens must have been a gift from Uncle Earl, and since they were Americans, it explains 8x10 vs 10x8. Oh, and I think one of them must have shot the Lost Adams Negatives with it.

[Steven Tribe]

The original owner was asking for suggestions about this len's identity - which I have provided.

I don't think your comments help him very much, Garrett.

Please don't quote me for things I have never written!

"I can't find W. Brown....he must not be a reseller....The engraving doesn't look like it was done by a craftsman...a reseller would have an expert engraver on staff...so it must have been done by an amateur....The serial number is a high number....this must always relate 1 for 1 to numbers of lenses made....therefore the number must be a lie...."

These are your quotation marks/italics - not mine!
An apology will be accepted.

[BarryS]

Here's a shot of my Dallmeyer 12x10 RR. I think the mystery lens seller directly copied the Dallmeyer typography. I'd guess it was an American reseller trying to add some panache to their no-name lens. Maybe it was like those speaker guys in the vans--someone would ride up next to you on horseback and tell you the lens had fallen off a wagon (wink wink), and offer you a great deal.

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7885/dallmeyerrr48241.jpg

[goamules]

The original owner was asking for suggestions about this len's identity - which I have provided.

I don't think your comments help him very much, Garrett.

...These are your quotation marks/italics - not mine!
An apology will be accepted.

Conjecture and speculation don't help him much either. You have no evidence it was engraved by an individual owner. There is however, a huge preponderance of evidence that there were hundreds of resellers of lenses, many long forgotten and too small to advertise in the periodicals Google links to. That was my point, you were suggesting it wasn't a reseller because you couldn't find anything with that name. I think that's false speculation. I've probably had 20 lenses that have names that aren't found. It's very common.

The real truth is it was probably a "named" lens by a reseller. This was very common, and it was meant to give items a certain feeling of value. Companies often made up a name and used it to market their pocketwatches, lenses, and other items.

Hey, you could be right, it could be a backyard job, from someone who bought unmarked lenses, engraved them, and resold. But then they're kind of a reseller, aren't they? I've seen a couple of fake Darlots, and Dallmeyers - they're always spelled differently or really rough engraved. I still say it was made for resale, not a personal engraving with a person's name.

As to my quotation and itallics, I was trying to show an example of faulty deductive reasoning, not quote you. Your text I kept in the /quote tags.

[Steven Tribe]

I assumed it was the Dallmeyer "layout" for their RR - but I didn't have a copy of their long-lived engraving style around to confirm it 100%. The inclusion of "PATENT" suggested that someone has the real article in front of them.

Perhaps the real Dallmeyer 39901 is also a RR? But I don't know is Sean (the guardian of the Dallmeyer ledgers) is interested in Dallmeyer copies - but he might be able to confirm?

Tom, I hope you find some of this interesting! It is likely to be good performer and, if you are thinking about selling, there is always interest in a professional forgery/misrepresentation of an innovative lens design.

[Andrew Plume]

Tom

As Steven said, 'William Brown' is not an unusual name and fwiw, I can chip in and add this

a William Brown in 1873 was living at 41 Kennington Oval London (now SE11); and

a Wm Brown was shown as being of 16 Kennington Oval from 1865 to 1866

my source for this is:

'A Directory of London Photographers 1841-1908' by Michael Pritchard

admittedly this may be a long shot but I thought that I'd post this information - Michael may possibly be able to help you - here's a link - http://www.mpritchard.com/

regards

andrew

[Tom Sobota]

Thanks to all that took the interest and the time to comment on my question.

After reading all your posts, I'm no less puzzled than before, except that there now seem to be more possibilities than I thought at first:

a. The lens is genuine but the maker disappeared from history. Against this, the high serial number, the "8x10" American style, and the striking similarity to the engravings on a Dallmeyer lens as submitted by Barry.

b. The lens is an anonymous RR, which has been engraved by:
b.1 An american dealer, or
b.2 The (also American) owner.

For now this is enough for me, perhaps in the future more information will surface somehow.

Steven, of course I find all this discussion interesting! I have collected several antique lenses during the years, which I also use, and I try to learn about them but I'm not an expert by a long shot, so all the information I gather in this forum is invaluable for me.

This particular lens was bought more than 30 years ago in South America (Buenos Aires I think) but I don't know its previous history. In general these goods were imported from the U.S. but also from Europe, and there were also local lens builders. I have an Euryscope marked as built in Argentina, but this one is perfectly identified as to the builder. The serial nr. is also smaller, in the four thousands.

For the moment I'm not thinking of selling this lens, it has surely a larger affective value for me than what I could get for it. I would sell it immediately if, as Garrett postulates, it has been used by Ansel Adams to photograph El Gran Capitán from Hernandez, New Mexico ;-)

Andrew, when I go to London I usually stay at a friends' place very near the Oval. Next time I'll go and have a look at those addresses you sent. The probability of finding something is nil, but hey ... and thanks for the reference to Michael Pritchard.

Tom

[Andrew Plume]

Hi Tom

thanks for your comments, very grateful

as to the Argentinian connection, don't forget that there was (and still is) plenty of trading between there and the UK and a good deal of British people settled in Argentina

best regards

andrew

[Steven Tribe]

I was just checking how dominant the "10x8" was in the UK by looking through the advert sections at the back of books from the 1890's published there. I could only find a single "8x10". An advert for Carbutt's Dry Plates - with an address at Wayne Junction, Philadelphia, US.

So I would think the solution lies in the New World.