Castle's Rapid Universal Lens

[heritagefutures]

Hi all,
has anyone ever heard of a Castle's Rapid Universal Lens?
I found the R Konishi Rapid Rectilinear f/8 lens I was trying to identify
(see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heritag...es/8694954016/ )
listed in the 1914 Konishi catalogue (scroll down on the above page for details).
That merely deepened the mystery, as Castle is not listed in the Vademecum and Google searches seem to go nowhere.
Any help and ideas would be much welcomed.
Dirk

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Castle was probably a dealer, the lens could be made by just about anyone I suppose, this happened a lot, dealer's bought lenses with their own names and brands on.

[heritagefutures]

In this case R[okuemon] Konishi of Tokyo are the dealers and the lens is marked 'KONISHI.'

In addition to the Castle lenses mentioned above, Konishi offered Dallmeyer, Goerz, Ross, Wollensak, Zeiss, Hermagis and Kenngott.... all are listed by their name/brand. Thus I have every reason to suspect that "Castle" is another maker of some description.

The listing for the Castle lenses is on the same catalogue page as an entry for W.Kenngott (Paris) lenses:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heritag...es/8717580914/

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Hmm, still never heard of Castle, the name sounds English of course, but if there had been a maker here called Castle, it would be known. So perhaps there was a Mr Castle who was an intermediary at some stage, perhaps an agent who sold English equipment in the Far East?

[heritagefutures]

Hmm, still never heard of Castle, the name sounds English of course, but if there had been a maker here called Castle, it would be known. So perhaps there was a Mr Castle who was an intermediary at some stage, perhaps an agent who sold English equipment in the Far East?

Further research seems to suggest that Konishi used the 'Castle' brand name for some of its products, such as photo paper which was first sold as 'Sakura' and from 1911 was called "Castle" (カッスルPOP): (Konishi History Website).