Gasc & Charconnet Petzval

[maurits]

I found this Parisian Petzval yesterday when strolling around Dutchland with Eddie. So far, I think it was made around 1860 or so. It appears to be an 8-inch focal length lens with a widest aperture of about f4. Its physical length is 5 inches with hood and the diameter is about 3,5 inches. On 4x5 it gives me more room for movements than a 210mm Sironar-N.

I can not take any pictures with it yet. No waterhouse stops (those I have to make) and no suitable lens board yet. The one in the picture on the 4x5 is a dummy I made out of foam board, already quite a challenge for me...

Does anyone know more about Gasc & Charconnet or of this particular lens? Their logo looks rather interesting, but I have no idea what it means. On the forum I found a few references, but nothing really revealing.

Cheers, Maurits


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[Steven Tribe]

These have been on e**y quite a few times during the years mostly on offer in the UK - also with the crude engaving around V & A. VM says virtually nothing. The "Quick Acting" suggest an export item. VM seems to suggest they are associated with Laverne - and, like Laverne, were an export organisation for other lens makers. The V and A doesn't stand for Victoria and Albert! I would have guessed at 1885-1895.

[CCHarrison]

If you look here http://archive.liveauctioneers.com/a.../0837_4_lg.jpg

you will see the same lens engarvings without the Gasc/Charoconnet marking... I think this is basically an f/4 Dallmeyer Petzval copy that GC added their name to... I think the lens is earlier, maybe 1870-1880. Not sure what the V&A marking is however...

Dan

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I had one a few years back, a 9" as I recall. Same markings. I know I took it apart to clean, and I don't remember it being a Dallmeyer type, but that doesn't mean it wasn't. It was a perfectly decent lens--f3.7 or thereabouts, with good contrast.

[GPS]

...
Does anyone know more about Gasc & Charconnet or of this particular lens? Their logo looks rather interesting, but I have no idea what it means. On the forum I found a few references, but nothing really revealing.

Cheers, Maurits


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Not that it would be helpful a lot but nobody said it yet - Gasc & Charconnet was a French manufacturer of photographic lenses. It had its share of the market in their time...

[Wimpler]

Gasc et Charconnet were producing petzval lenses quite early. I will check my information to see wether I find aything more specific.

I would regard this as a "rare", valuable and high quality item.

[Wimpler]

Not much extra info, just this:

Gasc et Charconnet, Paris changed name to Charconnet et Lavrance, Paris.

This is according to a 1911 book. Maybe you could find out when the change of name took place?

The company is mentioned together with Hermagis, Darlot, Jamin, Dallmeyer and Ross.

[maurits]

Many thanks all for the input so far!

I found (on the web) that Albert Gasc and Alphonse Charconnet were originally optical instrument makers. They were located at 7 Rue Chapon in the Marais district in Paris. There is a derelict looking little shop there now, selling what looks like used handbags... Jamin & Darlot was located in the same street at number 14.

Around 1877 the French lantern maker Arthur-Léon Laverne took over Gasc et Charconnet. Laverne sold his firm in april 1890 to Clément et Gilmer, after a 3 year partnership. Some of this information was found in the text of an actual French court order from 1891 published in the Revue Chronometrique. Laverne-Clément et Gilmer were operating out of the Rue de Malte in Paris, not far from the Marais.

For a while, Laverne sold his lenses using both names on the barrel. As in: Laverne & Cie, Ancienne Maison Gasc & Charconnet. This, I believe, means that all lenses with only the Gasc & Charconnet logo and name predate 1877.

I can find nothing relating Gasc to Dallmeyer or that they were openly copying Dallmeyer's designs. In A History of the Photographic Lens by Rudolf Kingslake (1989), Gasc et Charconnet are referred to as one of the principal early manufacturers of Petzval lenses. So I do not believe that their role was restricted to being an export firm only.

It is, however, recorded that Gasc et Charconnet produced European versions of Harrison's globe lens of 1862. Van Monckhoven's source for the data of the optical design of the globe lens was obtained directly from Gasc et Charconnet (Moritz von Rohr, Theorie und Geschichte des photographischen Objektivs, 1979, p. 174).

See also Photographic optics: including the description of lenses and enlarging by Désiré van Monckhoven (1867). On page 125 he states that "These data have been communicated to us by Messrs. Gasc and Charconnet, of Paris, the opticians who introduced the globe-objective into France under the name of lentiforme de l'oeuil; and who construct it with great perfection, and at a price much lower than the original American objectives."

It is unclear to me whether Gasc et Charconnet were officially licensed to create lenses based on Harrison's design or that they simply took the design and ran with it.

In his Traité encyclopédique de photographie, Charles Fabre wrote in 1889 that the opticiens who perfected Harrison's design are "[in France], MM. Darlot […] and Gasc et Charconnet (objectif lentiforme de l'oeil) […]." Again, this puts Gasc et Charconnet above simply being outright copycats or an export firm only.

In the USA, Gasc et Charconnet were represented by Geo Bryant. Lenses sold through Bryant were marked GEO BRYANT Co. Sole Agents Boston Mass. Some of these lenses also carried the Laverne name. I think Jon Wilson (of this forum) has or had one of these lenses. Apparently Richard Walzl from Baltimore imported Gasc et Charconnet copies of Harrison's globe lens into America. I guess Harrison wasn't overly happy with that.

Some of the archives of auction houses revealed pictures and descriptions of Gasc et Charconnet lenses. Most are dated around 1860, maybe that is where I got my date from. But I am not too keen on relying on dates provided by auctioneers. Westlicht from Austria dates a Gasc stereoset 1890 (# 20662 and 20663), when the firm already ceased to exist in 1877.

In an auction at Breker's, a Gasc version of the Harrison globe lens is dated circa 1860, two years before the patent for the globe lens was granted? This French wide-angle version of Harrison's globe is numbered 16569. Another Gasc et Charconnet lens, sold through Breker's, is numbered 8300 and dated 1857. Yet another wide-angle Gasc from the Brochard collection is dated circa 1860 and numbered 7919.

The lens in my original post has an even lower serial number 5565. It must be older than 1877 (when Gasc ceased to exist) and, given the low serial number compared to the globe lens variants (of which production started halfway the 1860's since VM wrote about these in 1867), probably from the early 1860's.

Pertaining to Gasc et Charconnet's logo there is nothing I could find. Obviously the central oval and lens-shaped artifacts to the left and right are related to their business as optical designers. The V&A are indeed unrelated to Victoria and Albert. Right minded Frenchmen would never name their lenses after the English queen and her husband (even more so since these royals where in fact more German than English). In that light it is remarkable that Gasc et Charconnet used English text on their lenses at all!

My theory: what if the V&A actually is A&A? The upper letter being a reversed A to form a symmetrical logo that reads Albert & Alphonse, lensmakers?



Anyway, sorry for being long-winded!

Cheers, Maurits


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[Steven Tribe]

Thanks for an entertaining and informative account! Quoting from respectable auction houses reveals, as you imply, that they have often completely bogus information. There was an example a few years ago, mentioned here, where a "complete" Plasticca was sold with only one of the two cells along with a set of perforated discs from a Imagon. And they have higher fees than e**y! Yes the V V idea is a good one - so the strange shaded background contains a C and a G. There is a vertical dash to the right of the & which could be the crossing on the G. Just because the company disappears, doesn't mean the engraving or established name is quickly given up. Remember Jarmin/ Jarmin Darlot etc. Jamin remained a long time on the optics after he was out of the picture. And the Goerz name was used long after 1926.

[csant]

My theory: what if the V&A actually is A&A? The upper letter being a reversed A to form a symmetrical logo that reads Albert & Alphonse, lensmakers?

so the strange shaded background contains a C and a G. There is a vertical dash to the right of the & which could be the crossing on the G.

This is actually a rather plausible analysis of the logo, and the more I look at it, the more I am convinced. The A&A was rather clear from the beginning, but I did not manage to explain the odd vertical dash - as part of a stylized lens, it made very little sense. Steven's suggestion is very plausible, and it feels like a few pieces fall in place…