History: The Cone Centralisateur lens design (which is a petzval design with a large cone in the rear to avoid reflections), is absolutely famous and sought after in the late 19th century and even more today. It was the flagship lens for Jamins and Darlots workshop in the early 1850ies and 1860ies in Paris. It offered better optical quality then most of his rivals, but also a possibility to it as a portrait (portrait mode) lens and also as a landscape lens (paysage). Even though its a petzval design, you will see a slight difference to other portrait petzvals from that time. The Cone Centralisateur lenses have this cenrtain 'something' to their image, which is hard to grasp, but many people are looking for.

The engraving reads:

'AncNe Mon JAMIN - DARLOT, Sb OPTen Bte s.g.d.g. - 14 r Chapon Paris'

This puts the lens in the small time period from 1863 to 1864, just after Jamin parted with Darlot.

Condition: This brass comes in a good condition overall. It shows some wear here and there but also a warm patina. The rack & pinion mechanism is complete and still moving. The glass is motly in good condition too, the front looks really nice, one of the rear elements bears some marks, though they wont affect the image quality. The image on the groundglass offers a really sharp center with a nice falloff towards the egdes.

With its fast open aperture of F4 and a focal lengh of 220mm (or almost 8 1/2"), this lens will work anywhere from 5x7 and fullplate formats.


In landscape mode it will have an estimated focal lenght of 500mm, covering huge ULF formats like 11" x 14" !

The best part about this lens, that it comes with quite some extra equipment which is 90% missing. It still has the original landscape mount, which transforms it into a pillbox landscape lens, it has one original washer stop for this part and it even has the brass pillbox lenscap also. I rarelly seen a complete Cone Centralisateur setup as this one.



height: 15cm
width: 8cm
weight: 1000gr

Insured and tracked shipping cost:

Germany - 20 eur
EU* - 30 eur
Worldwide - 90 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.