Vintage "counterfit" lenses?

[Mark Sawyer]

Starting a new thread, as not to pollute the long running "Re: Some Soft Focus Lens Sales Information" thread.

In that thread, Stevben Tribe noted about a just-sold Puyo lens:

Interesting contribution to Puyo knowledge.
It looks as though there was a free-for-all after Darlot (and the people who took over Darlot) lost interest in Puyo design. Must have been another maker, who unlike "Ligny", didn't have the courage to put his name or town on it!

Which got me to thinking... I've heard a few tales of "mis-engraved" lenses from that period: non-Darlots being engraved as Darlots, (which surprised me, as Darlots weren't the "big money" lenses at the time), and Garrett and I speculated a few months back about a Dallmeyer Portrait Lens that didn't quite look like a Dallmeyer.

As the old lenses were often sold unengraved to distributors who would sometimes then engrave them or sell them unmarked to individuals who could have them engraved, it seems the temptation, at least would be there.

And at a time when smaller lens makers could still make a go of it, it could be that some decided to make their own Puyos, Pullignies, or Voigtlanders.

Does anyone know of, or own, vintage lenses that you know or suspect aren't what they're engraved to be?

[Stephane]

Crude Heliar rebranding of a Euryscope

[Ole Tjugen]

I'm slightly suspicious to my Leitmeyr Weitwinkel-Anastigmat - unlike others, it's a reverse Dagor and not a double Gauss. Yet the curves are different to an Angulon, and who on earth would fake a cheap lens anyway?

[Steven Tribe]

The idea of "counterfeit" - and another stronger word - did occur to me when looking at the "Puyo" landscape lens.

We forget lens grinding and brass turning establishments were much more common than they are to-day. Loose apertures could be easily purchased too. And "Puyo" has very simple glass.

"Ligny" types are really just as anonomous - just the town of manufacture.

Another possibility is that these unmarked/Ligny "puyo" objectives were made by Darlot and ended up a "job lot" when Darlot
went under. A few score were sold unengraved, but the bulk were bought up by a "surplus shed" type organisation that added the Ligny engraving?

[Tim Deming]

This is a Darlot Petzval where the engraving was crudely olbiterated, then re-engraved as a "Voitlaender"!

Tim

[Steven Tribe]

Perhaps during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870!

[goamules]

I have a fake darlot. It's engraved "Dr. Darlotd" (including the extra "d" after the "t")

[Uri A]

Not a big market for lenses I guess, but there are factories in China faking $30 Casio watches...

[Uri A]

Come to think of it, I saw fake OPI nail polish in Shanghai!

[Sevo]

I'm slightly suspicious to my Leitmeyr Weitwinkel-Anastigmat - unlike others, it's a reverse Dagor and not a double Gauss. Yet the curves are different to an Angulon, and who on earth would fake a cheap lens anyway?

If price was the sales point, they will have shipped whatever fulfilled the order specifications and was at hand/could be made most economically with the tools, parts and materials at hand. They may even have engraved some other stock lens as WA-Anastigmat - it has been and still is common in industrial production to ship a equivalent or more expensive product which is in stock or in production rather than to set up a production run for a small volume order of a rarely requested product.