Nikkor 15cm f4.5 – Any Information?

[Univer]

Hello All,

Occasional lurker surfacing to ask a question.

I’m wondering if anyone might have some information about a recently acquired Nikon barrel lens. It came to me attached to a heavily modified all-aluminum view camera – unbranded – that looks like a sort of distant relation of the Graflex Graphic View.

It’s heavy brass with a black finish – similar, generally speaking, to the wartime Hexars I’ve handled. The mounting thread is ~46mm. I’m hopeless at counting reflections, but if I had to guess at the lens type, I’d vote Tessar. There are 18 diaphragm blades, and the aperture ring is marked in what I tend to think of as the old European scale: 4.5 / 6.3 / 9 / 12.5 (etc.). There’s no visual evidence of lens coating. The lens has obviously “seen life,” as Matanle might put it, but a few hastily improvised digital test shots suggest that it’s still quite usable.

The beauty ring is engraved as follows:
Nippon Kogaku Tokyo / No. 154 / Nikkor / 1:4.5 / f=15cm

I don’t own any Nikon reference books, but I’m a reasonably accomplished online searcher; so far I haven’t been able to turn up anything useful, beyond datapoints like the year in which the “Nikkor” trademark was adopted.

I’d be awfully grateful for any assistance.

Many thanks!

[Greg]

My guess is that it pre-dated the 120mm f/6.3 Macro-Nikkor lens that was part of Nikon's Multiphot system which was used for photomacrographic and photomicrographic applications. If your lens has 39mm (Leica) threads, would support this educated guess. Enlarging lenses usually had their aperture values on the sides of the lens and not on the front. Have come across other macro lenses that also had the f/stop values on the front. Again an educated guess...

[Dan Fromm]

Greg, that it is a high performance macro lens seems unlikely. Plain ordinary tessar type taking lens is the most likely. Re the aperture scale, I've seen CZJ Tessars, not macro lenses, like that.

[Greg]

Greg, that it is a high performance macro lens seems unlikely. Plain ordinary tessar type taking lens is the most likely. Re the aperture scale, I've seen CZJ Tessars, not macro lenses, like that.

As I said an "educated guess".
Circa around the 1960s, there were Tessar optics out there recommended and widely used for photomacrography
32mm f/4.5 B&L Tessar
32.5mm f/2.8 Zeiss (Jena) Tessar
48mm f/4.5 Bausch & Lomb Tessar
72mm f/4.5 Bausch & Lomb Tessar
105mm f/4.5 Carl Zeiss Tessar
among others.
Pretty sure all the above predated Luminars, Milars, Summars, etc.
Once had and used an early 50mm? Milar that, as I remember, looked suspiciously like a smaller version of this 15cm Nikkor, so I'll stick to my educated guess.

[Oren Grad]

Consistent with Dan's view, I'd speculate that it's a garden-variety normal tessar, descendant of the "Anytar" prototype design of the late 1920s:

http://web.archive.org/web/201001311...02_e/index.htm

[Greg]

Oren,
Thanks for posting the Memo No. 2 "The Anytar Lens" article. Will have to agree that it's a garden-variety normal tessar. Wouldn't you love to get a hold of a Anytar Dagor!
Greg

[Oren Grad]

Afraid there's a mischievous part of my brain that wants to take "Anytar" out of historical linguistic context and use it as inspiration for additional proposed lens names, like "Noparticulartar", "Yetanothertar", "Whatevertar", etc.

[Univer]

Thanks, everyone, for your extremely helpful replies.

Tessar type, I think, is almost certainly right (cf. original post). On the basis of this conversation, I’ll provisionally group this lens with the initial run of Nikkors, following on after the Anytar – manufactured in the early 1930s or so. I had been hesitant to draw that conclusion for a few reasons. First, the beauty ring engraving lacks the hyphen between “Nippon” and “Kogaku” – something I’ve noticed on photos of the early Nikkors. Second, the serial number doesn’t appear to fit in with the numbering of other early examples (again, based solely on photographic evidence). And finally, the apparent lack of any references to this specific focal length (as opposed to, say, the 12cm or the 18cm). That seemed noteworthy, especially for a brand whose history has been so well – sometimes obsessively – documented.

But early production is often marked by inconsistencies, and low-volume items often fall through the historical cracks. So I’m happy to assign this lens to that early group.

Thanks, again, for all your help!

[Corran]

Early Nikkor cameras/lenses are an interest of mine. I could be wrong here, but doesn't the marking of "Tokyo" indicate the manufacture to date during the time of Japan being occupied? This was common on Nikon rangefinder lenses, specifically the 5cm lenses that didn't have enough room to engrave "Occupied Japan," which is seen on other lenses of that age group. Once this occupation was over the 5cm lenses changed to saying "Nippon Kogaku Japan."

Just a thought - I'm curious either way. I just read the article and it seems early lenses also were marked Tokyo so it seems I'm wrong but it is interesting to see.