I placed an ad in the classifieds for a lens about which I can really only speculate because it is quite unusual. It is labelled "Goerz Optical Co. Inc." on the front with a serial number of 2000009. The rear is engraved with "made in Switzerland" and has the same serial number. The focal lengh appears to be 8 1/4 inches and it's a tiny lens (146 grams with the barrel) which covers 8x10. In my tests when I still had one, it appeared to have the same coverage on 8x10 as a labelled 8 1/4 Kern Dagor I owned (covered just fine but not with a huge amount of room for movements). It appeared to be the same construction (obvious Dagor design with the torch test) and the elements appeared to be the same size. However, the barrel wall is a little thicker than the Dagor I owned. The coatings appear identical to the single coated Kern Dagors I am familiar with (the MC 14inch version has a different appearance...) - a gentle amber color.
There is some speculation that this may be a "process Dagor". It may also be an unlabelled traditional Kern Dagor. The serial number and the Swiss origin suggest the latter very strongly. I have also never seen another "process Dagor" with signs on it that it was manufactured in the Kern factory. All the Kern Dagors I have ever seen (except for the very last run of multicoated 14inch one's which were factory mounted in Compur shutters and followed the Schneider serial numbering of the time - around 14XXXXXX) follow neither the Goerz serial numbers nor the Schneider ones, but have low 2XXXXXX serials which I presume were Kern serials - as does this lens. I have heard that some Trigors were made in Switzerland too - presumably by Kern, but I have never seen one of these - all of the "blue dot" or Trigor labelled lenses I have seen were US made. Also, the coatings I have seen on Trigors have always been a blue color, not the amber color which this lens has. Any ideas on the history of this lens?
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