roast and toast those negs, baby!

Upon first laying eyes on this monster, we thought someone was mistaken about its function. But no, it's got a lens! So, it can't be an outdoor oven. Or can it?

Maybe something for Ole's collection of ridiculously heavy things? It just might be the right size for his new russian toy...

It's indeed an enlarger: "agrandisseur" is "enlarger" in French. They also said that they will kindly provide more pics on demand. I'm trying to understand what kind of negs it needs and why the heck it's so big: they claim it's from the '30s-40s so it can't be illuminated by coals.

They also say that you can use it horizontally, so maybe it's an 8x10+ enlarger. I think Ole needs to buy it to tell us how it works.

Well your title led me to believe you had just been frequenting Amsterdam's famous cafes

But the 300mm lens might indicate a 10"x8" (approx) enlarger, for glass plates too old looking for cut film.

As our gallic friends all have brains like Asterix they call it "Le Reversible" as thats the easy way to differentiate negatives from a Daguerreotype

More seriously it looks like it is a very early enlarger more fitting for a museum as it is very substantial and looks extremely well made.

It's toooooooooooooooooooooo small for Ole's Russian toy

Ian

Ian Grant said:

More seriously it looks like it is a very early enlarger more fitting for a museum as it is very substantial and looks extremely well made.

It's toooooooooooooooooooooo small for Ole's Russian toy

Ian

Click to expand...

Well, for those who are seriously inflicted with the photo bug, it could be converted into a nice garden BBQ, methinks. Indeed it looks substantial enough for a nice 8x10" T-bone roast.

Well I'll let you buy this monster, to cook your steaks ;-)

I could certainly fry eggs on the head of my Devere 5108 during a printing session - with it's 4 300w halogen bulbs. So no need for this one !

But it does look interesting . . . . . . . . .

Ian

If that's what I think it is, you can enlarge on Azo with it

The barbecue chimney must be because of the high temperatures the light source generates. Within that timeframe (1930s to 40s) the only thing I can think of is a carbon arc...

Fortunately my darkroom is full as it is; there isn't room for another enlarger!

Is it steam-powered ?

If I had the means I'd buy it just to look at it - this thing is neat!

My grandfather was a forensic scientist at the FBI- started the FBI crime lab as a matter of fact. Anyway, after he left the FBI he did handwriting consulting work. He would photograph samples with an 8X10, and in his basement he had an enormous horizontal enlarger that went through the wall of his darkroom. It was made from some sort of very large, probably 16X20 or so view camera, that was mounted on a cast iron rail system. Anyway, the light source was very similar to the one on ebay. It used 2 large carbon arc lamps as a light source. You had to manually adjust the elements to get the correct arc- very similar to welding actually. Made a bunch of noise, and left an ozone sort of smell. Very cool in a mad scientist kind of way. That thing on ebay looks like a smaller vertical version of the same kind of set up. I would love to see it in use.