Here's a really dumb question for you. (I've already fallen out of the first round of "Stump the Idiot".)

I have a couple of these here Goerz Pantar lens cells of 11.75" length. (By the way another identical set of these just went on eBay for under $200. A bona fide deal.) Being a matched pair, they have a max aperture of f/6.8 and are fully assymetrical, a la Dagor. They have successive serial numbers. The only difference is that one of the cells has an asterisk - a "*" - on its rim. Why? If they are identical, they are identical; right? I should also state that these particular lenses came with a Goerz close-up bellows, with markings to indicate that it or the lens was made specifically for the other. Is this a clue? This is the only matched-set of cells I own (and none of the other individual cells has an asterisk on it), so I have no other pair with which to compare it.

Mysteries...

-- Chad Jarvis (cjarvis@nas.edu), April 24, 2001

Answers

Correction: the above statement "fully assymetrical" should read "fully symmetrical anastigmat." So sorry. "Fully assymetrical" doesn't even make sense.

-- Chad Jarvis (cjarvis@nas.edu), April 24, 2001.

Could it be that the * indicates that that one is suppossed to be in the rear? or front? Maybe it's a mark for the factory folks to remember that that particular cell is part of a specific set? Were the Pantars sold in casket sets or strictly one-at-a-time?

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), April 24, 2001.

I think the asterisk indicates a 162-game season.

-- Chris Patti (cmpatti@aol.com), April 24, 2001.

Sean, I thought that perhaps it was the rear cell possibility, but I would think that an 11.75" cell is an 11.75" cell. As far as how they were sold, I know that Goerz sold sets in series (I, II, II, IV) according to coverage, but the company also sold individual cells as complements to those sets. You don't even want to know how much (or little actually) some of them went for. But they also sold Pantars for some medium format cameras. And the device I have shows that they also sold these 11.75" pairs for specialized close-up gear, whether for large or medium format, I don't know.

And here's another question... if, and this is according to some Goerz docs, a pair of identical Pantar cells form a symmetrically anastigmatic lens (f/6.8 max), just like a Dagor, then why can't Dagor cells be swapped casket-style?

-- Chad Jarvis (cjarvis@nas.edu), April 24, 2001.