Deardorff Extra Rapid Portrait lens

[formatoff]

Good Day everyone,

I'm owner of this lens. It was made by L.F.Deardorff, Chicago and has an aperture ring with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 marks.
What is mean? Are there some catalogs for Deardorff lenses?
Thanks.

[CCHarrison]

1903 advertisement below. Deardorff did not make this lens - just labeled it as his.

[CCHarrison]

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[CCHarrison]

[Steven Tribe]

Dear Formatoff.

We are always glad to help you with your ebay listing as far as basic data when we can - although we would prefer owner/users!
Please don't ask about value as no one can make an accurate estimate of what these unusual items (like the 36cm Cooke/Voigtländer lens you asked about a month ago!) - even identical items listed close to each other fetch very different prices.

As you found out from your subsequent listing, unusual is not the same as value. My estimate in your thread about this one, based on the equivalent 36cm Heliar, didn't quite get a very good reception from you.

[formatoff]

Thank you for this info).
My example has a mark "Patent 1891". Who was an original maker of the lens? And how do I identify an aperture marks?

[formatoff]

Dear Steven,

I never asked about the Cooke/Voigtlander lens. I don't ask about estimate of the lens now.

[CCHarrison]

From http://www.ohio.edu/people/schneidw/...a_history.html

During the years from about 1885 until about 1900, Mr. Laben F. Deardorff worked for several companies including E. & H. T. Anthony, and Sweet-Wal1ach & Company, which later became the Eastman Kodak store. During this period he became very much interested in lenses and had Bausch & Lomb make changes in the Zeiss series 11 to make it more practical for photoengraving. These characteristics are still used in all process lenses. He also invented a Petzval type portrait lens which had adjustable separation for changing the shape of the field. On applying for a patent, he found that Ernst Gundlach of the Gundlach Optical Company had just patented it. Mr. Gundlach gave him the patent, and Mr. Deardorff had the lens made and sold it for a number of years. It was used for all of the official portraits made at the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1903.

[Steven Tribe]

My apologies! It was Poland, not Russia. Our previous correspondence was much more reasonable than the Polish voigtlander/cooke one!

[franeq]

Steven, do you see only sellers/re-sellers?