An oxymoron you say? Perhaps. Fancy as it is, it's no Deardorff. This came to me recently from a junk seller in the deep midwest. Now before I begin, note that I have zero provenance. I'm only making an educated guess. But here's my guess. In 1962 (catalog pages from Burke & James 1962 catalog) a person of means, some lawyer or doctor or maybe an indian chief, must have been smitten by Ansel's lovely pictures and purposed to duplicate a system that could produce like lovely things. Thus the 8X10 you see in the images. The surprise to me is that in an era of commercial drab gray cameras, I never knew that you could order the top of the line B&J camera with a lovely natural finish on the rock maple. Many have been refinished thus, but this camera gives every evidence of sitting stately in a closet since 1963.
And behold the Cooke Series XV Convertible Anastigmat in full 1960's (single coated) Betax 5 splendor! Arguably better even than Ansel's 1948 version because this one enjoys anti-reflective coatings that Ansel did not.
So that's my guess fwiw. Poo poo me all you please. To me it looks like a camera that got used 3 times and was put away. Oh, the hood on the lens. It is designed so that when the front group is removed, the hood comes off and screws back onto the shutter for control.
I ran the Burke and James 1962 prices through the inflation calculator and it came to slightly over $5000 in our $$$ current purchasing power. So if you can't live without it, that's a good place to begin ;~'))
And behold the Cooke Series XV Convertible Anastigmat in full 1960's (single coated) Betax 5 splendor! Arguably better even than Ansel's 1948 version because this one enjoys anti-reflective coatings that Ansel did not.
So that's my guess fwiw. Poo poo me all you please. To me it looks like a camera that got used 3 times and was put away. Oh, the hood on the lens. It is designed so that when the front group is removed, the hood comes off and screws back onto the shutter for control.
I ran the Burke and James 1962 prices through the inflation calculator and it came to slightly over $5000 in our $$$ current purchasing power. So if you can't live without it, that's a good place to begin ;~'))