Old Studio Camera?

[lyndonmscott]

Hi all. I recently was given an old enlarger that was built on a studio camera body. I was wondering if anyone could possibly tell me what type of camera it is/was as I would like to get it back to a working camera.

Thank you. Mark
Warrington, England

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[Jeff15]

Hello and welcome, good luck with this old gear..............

 

[lyndonmscott]

Thanks Jeff!

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[Tropicalmemories]

Interesting.

Is it 5x7 pr 8x10?

Looks like a turn of century studio camera? Is there a brass plaque or anything else to help identify it? There's so many different manufacturers from this time, from all over Europe and Russia, and with limited peoduction runs and many variations, it may be tough to identify?

Is it all there, and has it been damaged to convert it to an enlarger? I guess it had a bulb installed and perhaps a change of lens?

 

[lyndonmscott]

Thanks for the reply tropical. No identifiable plate unfortunately. I removed some old tape and found 14A/2546 stamped in the wood on top of the rear standard. Also 2 signatures on tape on rear standard in front of cold cathode light box. Only real damage is the wood cutout as shown in the photo. Regards, Mark

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[lyndonmscott]

Images of cold cathode light box.

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[Designer]

Good luck!

 

[vintagesnaps]

Fascinating. I'm not sure if these cameras were necessarily marked, it seems like the lenses often were more than the wooden body. The names being inscribed seems unusual. Have you tried searching those names to see if they show up as photographers from back in the day?

There are a few sites you might try, or look up the Large Format Photography forum and see if someone on there knows anything about it. You might try the Eastman House in Rochester NY as a resource and see if there's someone you can show the pictures and see what they know about it or suggest.

Early Cameras and Equipment from the Daguerreotype and Wet-Plate era - Antique and Vintage Cameras

British photographic history
Antique and Classic Cameras
Antique Cameras
James's Camera Retirement Home

 

[480sparky]

You might try here as well:

Large Format Photography Forum

 

[IanG]

That's always been an enlarger, it's had the condensers removed as well as the original light housing to take that light box.

This is quite typical for a horizontal enlarger from the early 1900s, you can see clearly where the condensers were located, also the negative holder slot.

I've restored one, a Houghton King enlarger, although I've not yet made the replacement bellows and I have some parts from another.

They get listed on Ebay but often don't sell.

Ian

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

This looks as though it was always a projector and not a camera.

The modified rear panel looks original and the circular hole is designed to accept a lantern, (with condenser lens).

There is not and looks like there never has been the facility to focus on a ground glass screen and replace the screen with a dark slide.

The most telling part though is that the rear standard is fixed and the rear bed is fixed for the addition of a lantern, the lens then racks out to focus the image on a screen:

Photos: Education technologies from the 1900s

 

[IanG]

It's an enlarger not a lantern slide projector, so is the one in the link probably. Magic lantern slides are much smaller dimensions some magic lantern projectors but only a few look like small enlargers, in this case it's too large to have been a projector.

Should have added the rise/fall for the lens is for composing as often the paper is in a fixed position, sometimes there's some slight adjustment in the plate holder as well, one one frame I have this allows slight rotation.

My Houghton King takes Quarter plate and 5x4 plates and has some up/down movement in the plate holder as well as rise/fall of the lens. Unfortunately I only have condensers for Quarter plate.

Ian

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

It's an enlarger not a lantern slide projector, so is the one in the link probably. Magic lantern slides are much smaller dimensions some magic lantern projectors but only a few look like small enlargers, in this case it's too large to have been a projector.

Ian

Very possibly Ian.

An enlarger is essentially a projector so they are the same thing. The image was just the first one I came across that showed the projector/enlarger in it's original form with the best clarity. It was the picture and not the title...

https://www.luikerwaal.com/newframe_uk.htm?/merk_butcher1_uk.htm

MAGIC LANTERN COLLECTION – Laterna Magica Scroll down to the Thornton Pickard Magic Lantern Enlarger.

 

[IanG]

My Houghtons King enlarger is very similar to the Butcher Enlarger incorrectly called a Magic Lantern/Enlarger in your first link. The only difference is the lamp housing also moves on a rack and pinion system and the lamp housing differs but that changed over the years. In fact Butcher were always linked closely to Houghtons and made some of their cameras and enlargers, they had common ownership by 1915 although traded separately until 1926 when they finally merged completely.

Enlargers were known as "Enlarger Lanterns", I have both Houghtons and Butcher adverts from the late 1890's onwards and Projection Lanterns commonly called Magic lanterns are different. I see a lot of Projection/Magic lanterns at the Flea market I go to..

The "Lantern" itself is just the lamp housing and light source, they used Gas, Lime light, Oil, and sometimes Electric Arc lamps, in the early days.

Ian

 

[Tropicalmemories]

Those were the days when products had names like the 'Thornton-Pickard Imperial' and 'Houghtons-King Enlarger'.

Just the names make me want to sport an impressive moustache and invade foreign lands.