Pinkham and Smith

Hi Lazlo,
         Thanks for all the information on Pinkham and Smith... If you do
not mind I would like permission to forward this thread to several people ,
including Kodak's Eastman House Library ( they have very little information)
...It is amazing how little history is available on these lenses.....
      How we came about to purchase the lens is my friend who does modern
Ambrotypes recieved a grant for her work.... One of the things she wanted
to do with the money is to purchase a nice Soft Focus lens....... Not
knowing anything about anything , we seen a few on E-Pay and tried bidding
on a Wollensak 16 inch "Verito" just to find out that there was a lot of
intrest and the bidding went thru the roof ( $1100+ for a 14 inch and $700+
for a 16 inch....) ....We did not win the lens so the search
continued........
      I started doing a little research on Soft Focus lenses to find they
were not all created equal. A book I found burried under " the pile"
named " Professional Portrait Lightings" by Able showed about 100 different
Portrait lightings, all from different photographers, most of which were
taken using Soft Focus Lenses.. ..... It was hard to judge as there were
images done using different processes but the images taken with the Pinkham
Smith lenses were just spectacular . We decided to try to find a Pinkham
Smith.......
        My friend , who just missing the bid on the Verito, was in no mood
to be screwing around. ( She was breathing fire at this point.)........ .
I found a Dealer in New York that had listed a Pinkham Smith on line for
$550 , and she contacted him to find the listed lens was already sold...
(This probably threw my friend into hyper accellerated overdrive!)
He said he did have this other lens that was in Mint Condition with the
original lens cap named " Pinkham "... He estimated it to be made in the
1930's... It was a real collectable .......Needless to say it was bought
immediatley for $1500.!

    If I can figure out how to post images I will post a few trial
pictures taken with the lens as well as images from the book that we based
our decision on and a picture of the lens...
Best Regards,
John Cremati
Received on Fri Jan 21 06:25:07 2005