A. M. lens: Who made it? "W W" code = ???

[Carsten Wolff]

I recently acquired a cheap and cheerful, but actually pretty nice 5" f4.5 Anastigmat.
It is an "A.M." lens i.e. made for the British Military.
There is no maker on it; just a code "W W" and then the serial number.
Vademecum says UU, or VV are Dallmeyer...what's WW though?

Any help appreciated, thanks.....

[IanG]

Ross handled the contracts, they were the major contractor for the Air Ministry and took over the Carl Zeiss factory which was set up a couple of years before WWI, mainly to produce Binoculars but some camera lenses were made there as well.

Ross sub-contracted some production to Dallmeyer etc.

You might compare your lens to the 5" Ross Anastigmats, see if it's similar.

Ian

[Dan Fromm]

Carsten, what is the lens' serial number? I ask because the Air Ministry lenses I've paid attention to all had serial numbers that fitted the maker's s/n sequence. No help with N.O.Co, alas.

[Carsten Wolff]

Dan, the number is 29717.

[IanG]

One problem is that prior to WWI Ross were manufacturing a wide range of Zeiss and Goerz lenses under licence. Prior to the war they were marked as such, during the war they went unmarked, no royalties were being paid.

My Ross AM lens, a 151mm f16 wide angle, is an unmarked Protar, just says Ross 151mm and the serial number. Ross seem to have been less keen for sub contractors to add their own names.

A photo might help. there are adverts around for all the major UK lens manufacturers of that period.

Ian

[Dan Fromm]

Carsten, that s/n is out of range for the major makers. NOCo, perhaps, but as usual I could be mistaken.

[Carsten Wolff]

Here's a pic:

Thanks for your help, guys.

[Andrew Plume]

Carsten

there's no link.....................

andrew

[Carsten Wolff]

That was weird: When I edit the post, the link is there; when I look a the post , it's gone....Sorry, here it is again:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37082363@N08/5494164470/
The pic is of the website I bought it of.

[Dan Fromm]

Carsten, it looks much like the 5"/4.5 Ross WA Xpres I used to have. I convinced myself that mine was made by Ross, its s/n was VV xxxxxx