Antique lens options for 6x4.5?

I have a case of GAS for an old lens, perhaps an early 20th century Cooke triplet or even Petzval era, full of brass and patina and buttery swirly bokeh and ancient truths about the universe. However, I want something in a useful FL for 6x4.5 negatives, so not too much longer than ~100mm. And ideally faster than f/8 or so. Shutter and mount are unimportant as I'll be building a camera around it, but an aperture or Waterhouse slot would be nice.

So far, the earliest suitable lens I can find that seems easily obtainable is the Bausch & Lomb Tessar Ic #12, 3.5"/f4.5 from around 1920... but for whatever reason I'm not excited by it, probably because I already have a few Zeiss Tessars of late 30's vintage.

I was also intrigued by the 1931 Leitz Hektor 7.3cm/f1.9 that's listed in the classifieds here, but I don't think it covers anywhere near a ~70mm image circle.

Any other options I should consider or is this an impossible quest?

ProfessorC1983 said:

I have a case of GAS for an old lens, perhaps an early 20th century Cooke triplet or even Petzval era, full of brass and patina and buttery swirly bokeh and ancient truths about the universe.

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Not to rain too much on your parade, but one of the older truths of the universe is that modern lenses -- anastigmats of all types, including Cooke triplets -- don't have "buttery swirly bokeh." Neither do Petzval lenses, when not abused by asking them for more coverage than they were designed to give.

I think a Tessar would not work either, but maybe they were softer 100 years ago. It sounds like you could use any lens from an old 120 type folder or plate camera, but a box camera or pseudo TLR may provide the sort of image quality you're looking for. The cheaper the camera, the better. Don't forget about flipping a lens element, I've made some neat photos when that accidentally happened.

Take a look at https://thebokehfactory.com

If you're looking for inexpensive options to experiment with, I've used a few older enlarging lenses as taking lenses. My 5 1/2" enlarging lens has served me well as a wide angle for large format. For medium format, you could shave a few inches and perhaps look for a vintage-looking 3 1/2" or 90/75mm lens. Another neat lens that I've used is the Industar-29 from Russia, which has more than enough coverage for 6x4.5 and the vintage look to go with it. Of course though, as a Soviet lens, it has a lackluster quality control reputation.

I took this sample photo wide open with my 5 1/2" Ilex Paragon Anastigmat f4.5 enlarging lens. There are books not 10 inches behind the spaceman that are completely blown out of focus. You'll have to excuse the terrible noise and exposure; I took this by hand holding the lens in front of my crop sensor.

The larger (4x6cm) 127 film cameras, say a Vest Pocket Kodak, may be a place to start. Another source would be a portrait attachment for a very old camera-- as a single, uncoated lens element with large aperture and nothing to correct aberrations, it'd be a trip. Tape it to the front of a shutter and have at. (I have one that turns out to be about 4"/100mm FL-- but it covers 4x5 pretty well; bought it from Jim Galli years ago.)