Vitaly, workers at EKCo patented a number of tessar type lenses in 1939 and 1940. Some of the patents included prescriptions for as many as four different designs that the inventors thought the patent covered. Four isn't many, you should look at some of L. Bertele's patents.

Visit Brian Wallen's site http://www.bnphoto.org/ for information about Ektars and their predecessors. Beware, the site doesn't have many signposts, you'll have to hunt around a good deal. Worth the effort, I think.

Yes, I am quite familiar with this information. But it is not definitive, and sometimes ambiguous.

For example, the "Kodak Anastigmat" nomenclature can mean different things at different times. And I am unable to find confirmation either way regarding Les' remark about the Recomar lens as a 107mm Ektar equivalent.

At this point in time, the incompleteness of published histories can benefit from additional data supplied by "archeologists" who have unearthed actual lens artifacts from their forgotten soils.

(BTW, the transition of Brian Wallen's new domain isn't working very too well right now, sorry to say.)

Wellllll, While I've seen 107mm mounted on Minis, and I'll bet some are from the factory, this the 105mm f4.5 KA (also a Tessar) that's listed in the Oct. 1938 price list.

The lens date coding started in 1940. No earlier lenses were marked. I also have a 1941 uncoated 127mm Ektar in a Rapax shutter of all things, and it was the first lens I bought after I bought my first Century from the original purchaser in 1994. It is extremely sharp. I also have the front element focusing 101mm f/4.5 Anastigmat Special in a Supermatic with a 1940 date code. Actually, I have two ( I own 55 lenses total). I have the 135mm Anastigmat from a Recomar and it does not look like a Schneider design just judging from the diameters of the glass. So who knows, EK might have made it. Or had Bausch and Lomb do it. It's in a compur. In the 50th Anniversary graflex catalog (printed in 1940) it does indeed show the Mini Speed with the 107mm Ektar in a Supermatic. In the price supplement in the back it shows also standard lenses being the 101mm Ektar in Supermatic with press focus, and the 127mm Anastigmat (!) in the plain Supermatic. Just below the Mini Speed, in the listing for the 3.25 by 4.25 Speed Graphics it shows both the 127mm f/4.7 Ektar as well as the 127mm F/4.5 Anastigmat. The Ektar has press focus, the Anastigmat does not. So there was apparently some overlap between the two.

Yes, this is very interesting product information. It tends to support a conjecture: during the 1940/41 transition period, lenses mounted in the Supermatics without synchronization and press focus features were marketed with the "Kodak Anastigmat" nomenclature. When the equivalent lenses were mounted in Flash Supermatics -- which do include the press focus -- they were named "Ektar".

This information is useful to current Graflex/Kodak enthusiast for many reasons. Not least of which is the fact that the Supermatic-mounted Kodak Anastigmat lenses -- when they do show up -- are often available at less than 1/3rd the price of the Ektar labeled equivalent!

Um, Vitaly, I don't understand why people go on about fine distinctions between tessar type lenses. f/6.3 tessar types were about as good as they ever became from the beginning; Rudolph got that design right, and that was that. f/4.5 tessar types were about as good as possible by around 1930.

From the point of view of users, it seems to me that although there are exceptions its hard to go wrong with an f/4.5 or slower post-1930 (or so) tessar. Faster (f/3.5, f/2.7) tessar types may be another matter.

The exception I have in mind is actually earlier. I have two 85/6.3 B&L-made Tessars extracted from Premo #12s. The older one was made no later than 1915, the newer one no earlier than 1916. There are mechanical differences between the two, the newer one's front cell won't go into the older one's shutter. And the newer one shoots much better.

Cheers,

Dan

Dan, are you suggesting there are actually people out there who don't find all this Tessar minutia and Ektar arcana the most fascinating, intriguing, and compelling subject on the planet?

Anyway, I for one remain very interested in Banjo's 107mm Ektar. I would love to see some results from this lens, and would even part with some serious lunch money to try one out for myself!

Vitaly, I'm not aware that tessars from any maker are the center of any photographer's little universe. I have some, use 'em because they're good enough and cost-effective and offend the bigots who insist that only the latest most best lenses are usable at all.

The only lenses more despised than tessars are triplets. Back when, Modern Photography's standard of awfulness was Schneider's Radionar.

Funny thing is, over on the LF forum people seem to be chasing Cooke Series IIs, and not Aviars and "knuckler" soft focus lenses. Common plain vanilla old Triplets, not the latest and greatest. Funnier thing is that those of us here who've shot 103/4.5 Graflars against 101 Ektars and Raptars/Optars have all found the triplet better. And all of these are better than the revered 105/3.7 Ektar, especially in the corners.

Where were you when I had a truly crappy Mini Speed Graphic with a 107/3.7? Where were you when I needed you? I bought the Mini because it had a 2x3 Pacemaker Graflok, not the proper Mini Graflok retrofit, swapped backs between it and my 2x3 Pacemaker Speed what had a spring (boo! hiss!) back and sold it. Had I known you were going to come along wanting to spend the price of a good lunch on a 107/3.7 I'd have kept it, Mini Speed and all, just for you.

Cheers,

Dan

hey al
I now have a like NEW Ektar 107mm can't try it out yet out of film
some come soon BUT just looking on the ground glass it look Great

banjo