Samuel Peck & Co.
New Haven CT
Field View Camera
Samuel H.
Peck manufactured Daguerreian images, cases, and ~1850-1860 wet-plate
cameras. He entered and partnership with Scovill Mfg. Co. in 1857
and sold out by 1860. Cameras having Peck markings continued to be
made through the 1860's, 1870's and at least until 1884. This one
is a style not found in the few Peck catalogs, and was made in perhaps
the 1870's.
8 x 8"
Stamp on rear
rail
Date Introduced: - ;
Years Manufactured: c. 1860's-1870's References: Scovill Mfg. Co
Petzval-type lens, engraved: "Quick Acting 645 Peerless
SMC Trademark". 645 is the serial number. Scovill's
Peerless lenses were reportedly made by Richard Morrison, whose wide
angle and extreme wide angle lenses were marketed by Scovill under his
own name. This lens is a radial drive; by 1872, Peerless lenses
were tangential drive.
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Construction: rear
focus via push-pull; single swing; reversing
by positioning of plate in holder.
Materials: mahogany body;
black painted base; black fabric bellows;
brass hardware, three-piece lens board is painted
black.
Sizes Offered: 6 ½x8 ½
Notes: This camera
has a strange mix of black painted and natural varnished components,
although all are original. Even the lens, R. Walzl Baltimore, is
the only lens to have been installed on the lens board. How does
one know that this lens board, though painted, is original? It has
an assembly number 6 stamped into it. By chance, another
Peck camera (a studio camera) having a natural colored lens board
which very much matches its body also has a 6 stamp - both these
assembly numbers were found by microscopic examination to have been
struck from the same tool. The conclusion is that the 6 stamp tool
was a Peck factory stamp tool, and therefore the lens boards bearing
that stamp were made in the factory, regardless of finish.
