History: The Dallmeyer 'Series B' was by then one of the most known and highly praised portrait petzval lenses back in the early days. This didnt change untill today, where the wet plate community holds the B series in high regards.

The serial number: '75.276' looking through the Dallmeyer archives it can be dated to the early 1900es.

Condition: A very rare and striking feature here is that the lens is an inbetween version and offers the best of two worlds. It has the better soft focus mechanism (turn the barrell) of the newer versio, but instead of beeing made of aluminium and painted black, it is still made of brass and shows a fantastic golden finish with a nice golden patina.

The glass is very clear and shows only minimal cleaning marks, and tiny specs here and there, which wont affect the image quality at all. The image on the groundglass is outstanding, especially at close range on the 8x10 format.

The lens has a focal lenght of 290mm (11") at a speed of F3. It will cover 5x7 format but probably the best work it does on portraits with the 8x10 format.There it shows a fantastic petzval bokeh in the out of focus area. As all Dallmeyer petzval lenses this one is very very sharp in the center, considering the nice falloff its the perfect tool for portraits in those formats.

The best part here is that the lens comes including 3 authentic waterhouse stops, which are missing most of the time. This way you have a very good aperture control when shooting.


height: 18cm
width: 10cm
weight: 2000gr

Insured and tracked shipping cost:

Germany - 20 eur
EU* - 80 eur
Worldwide - 150 eur

*(the site offers only 2 shipping variations, DE and worldwide. buyers from EU please either contact me beforehand for a reduced EU cost, or after buying so i can send a refund over the difference)

Importent Note: This item comes from my private collection and is around 100 years old (antique). I try my best to describe all the faults and major damage which are relevant for the function of this item. But the actuall item can show signs of wear and also some cosmetic blemishes/damage which is not described in the auction text! When buying this item the buyer agrees to this terms.