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!
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