[LargeFormat] Kodak serial numbers

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Les Newcomer" <lnphoto@twmi.rr.com>
To: <largeformat@f32.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 7:09 PM
Subject: Re: [LargeFormat] Kodak serial numbers


> For those that are still interested, I think the following
auction tells a
> lot
>
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=139464541
0
> Both are the same lens with the same serial number 000
from the same year.
>
> ASIK this clinches the theory that "000 serialed lenses
are pre-production
> and unsequential, they could be early in the design and
build they could
> be the last before production started. There is no clue as
to how many or
> few of any particular 000 lens they made"
>
   FWIW, the "circle-L" mark and the trade-name "Luminized"
for hard coating appeared first about 1946 or 1947. Kodak
_soft_ coated some lenses from about 1940. These were the
Eastman Ektar, predecessor to the Kodak Commercial Ektar,
the lenses for the Kodak Ektra camera, and lenses for the
Kodak Medalist. There may have been others. Soft coatings
are deposited in a chemical bath. They are very soft and can
be damaged or even removed by ordinary lens cleaning. They
were applied to surfaces in sealed cells.
  It is diffucult to find data to date vacuume deposited
lens coatings. The processes was developed at Zeiss as early
as 1935 but does not seem to have been used by them, at
least not for common optical products. U.S. manufacturers
began hard coating in 1946 or 47, some later. I think all
Kodak and Wollensak lenses were coated beginning in 1947.
Wollensak's trademark was a large C with a W inside it for
"Wocoating". There were also aftermarket coating services
available.
  One finds a number of U.S.Navy binoculars of the 7x50
Bausch & Lomb type with hard coating. These seem all to have
been coated long afer manufacture, probably in the late
1940's.
  Kodak's manufacturing records were given to RIT. I don't
know how many, if any, have been catalogued. At this time no
one at Kodak has much knowledge of the product history of
the company.
  BTW, the first use of the name Ektar was in 1936 for a
44mm f/2.0 Biotar type lens used on the Kodak Bantam Special
camera.


---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@ix.netcom.com