Museum-Quality c.1900 Mahogany Field Camera with Bausch & Lomb Rapid Rectilinear Lens & Original Seneca Special No. 1 Professional Tripod. The Original professional Seneca field tripod is a find by itself.
It's a very high quality period, working photographic instrument that is in exceptional condition. Can still be used today. Optics are transferable to images now. I have tried it several times. There obviously not as good as the products today. You are buying a working highly sought after nostalgic and Institutionally relevant camera.
Basically, it looks great and it works.
If you want more of an academic description please read below for specifications.
Academic description:
Marriage of Victorian engineering and American optical excellence. A late nineteenth-century photographic outfit survives as a remarkably complete and functional (working) example from photography's golden age.
Dating from approximately 1897–1905, the camera is constructed in finely finished mahogany with lacquered brass fittings and retains its original bellows, focusing mechanism, distance scales and optical components.
It is fitted with an ORIGINAL Bausch & Lomb Rapid Rectilinear lens, one of the most respected professional photographic lenses of the era, bearing patent markings dating to January 5, 1897 in exceptional condition.
The camera remains in working order, with smooth focusing movement, intact bellows and excellent overall presentation. The warm patina of the timber and brass reflects more than a century of careful preservation.
Accompanying the camera is its original folding Seneca "Special No.1" tripod, an increasingly scarce survival in its own right. The tripod head retains patent references to September 1889 and March 1891, confirming its manufacture during the formative years of American photographic equipment production.
It took me 9 years to find this field tripod.
Complete camera-and-tripod ensembles of this quality are becoming increasingly difficult to locate, with many examples having been separated over the last century. ( That's actually true).
The outfit represents a fascinating period when photographers travelled with substantial wooden field cameras to create glass-plate negatives, documenting landscapes, architecture, scientific expeditions and family history.
Today it stands as both a functional antique instrument and a superb display piece for collectors, museums, photographers and decorators seeking authentic period equipment.
Features
• Original mahogany field camera, c.1900
• Original Bausch & Lomb Rapid Rectilinear lens
• Patent dated January 5, 1897 lens assembly
• Original lacquered brass fittings and focusing rail
• Original bellows in excellent displayable condition
• Distance scales in both feet and metres
• Working focusing mechanism
• Original Seneca Special No.1 folding tripod
• Patent references September 1889 and March 1891
• Complete period photographic outfit
• Authentic late Victorian / Edwardian photographic equipment
• Exceptional display, collection and investment piece
A rare opportunity to acquire a complete and highly attractive photographic outfit from the dawn of modern photography, preserving the craftsmanship, ingenuity and elegance of the late Victorian era with the very rare accompanying field tripod
Pick up Runcorn QLD 4113 or shipping at buyer's expense