[LargeFormat] NEW SEPT Theme "Your rarest lens" (s)

[Les Newcomer]

While I was on a roll, I sent this one two.

My entry in this month's sub-theme is  a set of rare lenses
http://home.twmi.rr.com/lnphoto/lensgrpweb.jpg

The telephotos showed up on ebay first. They were indeed interesting as 
I thought that Kodak might be trying out new lenses for the Miniature 
Speed Graphic. The focal lengths were odd and the serial numbers  
intrigued me.

I wrote to Todd Gustavson at George Eastman House about the serial 
number, and while he didn't say anything concrete about them he did 
mention this camera:

http://www.geh.org/fm/toronto/htmlsrc/mE13000625_ful.html#topoftext

Essentially, the Teknar was supposed to compete with the Linhoff  and 
other high end press cameras, but before it could get off the ground 
Kodak shifted paradigms and bowed out of the pro photography market.  
At least one other Teknar was made in Germany and bares  a slight 
resemblance to this camera. I suspect they realized they couldn't 
compete with cheap German labor after the war, so they tried to farm 
this project overseas before they killed it completely.

In an email he noted that the camera was engraved for the following 
lenses:
  80mm f/6.3,
110mm f/4.5,
110mm f/2.7,
143mm f/4.5,
195mm f/5.6,
  255mm f/5.6
  338mm f/5.6.

Okay so now I knew what I had and if I had any doubt, it was erased 
when the 110mm f2.7 showed up the next week (the lens at 6 o'clock in 
the photo).  Now this lens doesn't really play by the all of the rules. 
  The two tele's are coated (one blue one straw-gold) both are made in 
1945 when the Teknar supposedly was in  R&D.  While the 110 has the 
right focal length, speed, lensboard and even shutter, is uncoated and 
made in 1940.

Could the Teknar project been started that much earlier but delayed 
because of the war?  Could this lens been part of something else and 
got drafted into the Teknar project like so many High School grads in 
the same year?   I don't know and any paper work that might tell has 
yet to surface.

The 195mm lens was the last from the same seller, it wasn't complete, I 
had to fight off several well heeled japanese collectors to get the 
teles so I didn't bid on the 195 and it went  cheap.

The 143mm lens came from Jay Tepper who found it at the same swap I was 
at and missed it.  He tried to sell it on ebay and I bought it from him 
after two failed ebay tries.

The prototype 80mm WF Ektar probably wasn't part of the Teknar program 
by the time this one was made, but I include it here because the 80  
did come out of the project.  This lens is a year later and has the 
notation of "first single piece front mount"  I suspect this was the 
beginning of the "rolled edge" method of securing the glass to the 
mount. A very cheap and innovative method of manufacture it just 
doesn't leave any chance for repairing the lens or cleaning the air 
space later.

So out of 7 potential lenses I have 5, one is half its former self, and 
the other  is a slower duplicate of the one I have.

One of these days I'd like to see the lenses and the camera united, but 
so far neither Todd nor I are budging.

Les