Blair Camera Co.
Perfect Reversible Back Camera
6½ x
8½",
Serial No. 114
Label, metal, top of front
standard
Serial number, bottom of
front section
Date Introduced: - ;
Years Manufactured: c.1886 - c. 1887
Construction: front focus
via rack and pinion (one gear tracks on the middle base rail);
single swing; reverse by removable back; three-piece lens board
Materials: mahogany body; mahogany base;
black fabric bellows; nickeled hardware
Sizes Offered: 4x5; 4¼x5½;
5x7; 5x8;
6½x8½; 8x10"
Notes:
An engraving of this model was not seen until the acquisition of an 1886 Blair catalog in 2017. This camera previously was thought to be a 1887 version of the Cincinnati Reversible Back. Now it is known to be The Perfect Reversible Back Camera. The example camera matches the engravings exactly, which is mentioned because it is not that rare for example cameras not to match their corresponding Blair engravings precisely.
The camera is different than other Blair
models in that it features a slide-in front
base extension, held in only by the minimal friction of two brass springs.
This arrangement may have worked when the springs were new, but the
springs should have been made of steel, as the brass ones have fatigued
to the point that turning the focus knob tends to cause the entire
extension to walk out of its position rather than to progress the nested
front part of the extension, as was planned. The long aspect of
the period case (probably not a Blair case) serves to hold the extension
during storage, although Blair shows how the extension would have been
stored in a Blair case.
References:
Photographic
Apparatus Manufactured by The Blair Camera Company, Blair Camera
Co. (Boston, MA), distributed by C.R. Selee (56 Bromfield St., Boston,
MA), dated 1886, pp. 8-9
Photographic Lenses and How to Select Them, James W. Queen & Co.
(Philadelphia, PA), 1887, back cover
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