Samuel Peck & Co. (New Haven, CT factory)
Scovill Mfg. Co. (New Haven, CT factory)

 

Samuel Peck & Co. Stereoscopic View Camera (wet plate version, c.1860's - c.1880)
Scovill Mfg. Co. New Haven Stereoscopic View Camera (dry plate version, c.1880 - c.1884)

  

 

     This camera exists both in a wet plate version (c.1850-c.1880), probably called merely the Samuel Peck & Co. Stereoscopic View Camera, and an almost identical dry plate version (c.1880-c.1884), called the New Haven Stereoscopic View Camera.

     Samuel H. Peck manufactured Daguerreian images, cases, and ~1850-1860 wet-plate cameras in a factory located in New Haven, CT.  He entered into a partnership with Scovill Mfg. Co. in 1857 and sold the company to them by 1860.  After the purchase, Scovill continued to manufacture cameras in the New Haven factory.  Samuel Peck & Co. still issued catalogs during the 1870's, one of which is housed at The Smithsonian.  The cameras produced during that period apparently continued to be stamped with Samuel Peck & Co. stamps, as no example of Peck-like cameras from that era have been observed bearing a Scovill stamp - a stamp, for instance, like "American Optical, Scovill Mfg. Co., Proprietors", a common label and stamp used for cameras made in the factory formerly owned by the American Optical Co., another camera-manufacturing company purchased by Scovill.

     In 1884, a Scovill catalog (Descriptive Catalogue and Price List of the Photographic Apparatus Manufactured by the American Optical Co., Scovill Mfg. Co., proprietors and managers (New York, NY), Sept. 1884 catalog (pp. 74-77) has four pages of cameras called New Haven cameras that appear to be old Peck wet plate designs adapted for dry plates.  It would appear that Scovill was, at that time, making Scovill cameras of their own design at their Waterbury, CT factory, and also making cameras of Peck design at the former Peck factory in New Haven CT, but had decided to stamp the New Haven factory cameras with a Scovill stamp, but thought that by keeping New Haven in the model name, those cameras would have the same cachet as a Peck-marked camera.

     During this same period, the American Optical factory in New York City manufactured the American Optical Philadelphia Stereo Box, a camera having the "Scovill"-containing label as described above.  The Philadelphia Stereo Box is close to identical to the New Haven Stereoscopic View Camera - close enough that the exact same engraving is used to illustrate each camera in the same 1884 catalog.  Since the American Optical Philadelphia Stereoscopic Camera was introduced in 1870 (see reference below), ten years after Samuel Peck & Co. was purchased by Scovill, it is possible that the design originated with Peck, and that the Peck Stereoscopic View Camera is the precursor of the Philadelphia Stereoscopic Camera.

     After 1884, the old Peck designs and the New Haven name dropped from the catalogs.  Therefore, we can conclude that, about 1885, the New Haven factory stopped making their Peck designs, and started to manufacture Scovill designs stamped with Scovill stamps.

Below, an engraving of the New Haven Stereoscopic Camera, a dry-plate version virtually identical to the examples below of the wet-plate Samuel Peck & Co. camera.  Note that the ground glass frame on the dry plate camera in the engraving appears to be thinner than the ground glass frames in the two wet plate camera examples.  Dry plate holders generally were thinner than wet plate holders.

  Descriptive Catalogue and Price List of the Photographic Apparatus Manufactured by the American Optical Co., Scovill Mfg. Co., proprietors and managers (New York, NY), Sept. 1884, p.76

 

5 x 8" camera , one of two examples of the Peck Stereoscopic View Camera, Assembly No. 3, having a Samuel Peck & Co. stamp - the wet plate precursor of the dry plate New Haven Stereoscopic View Camera.

Bottom

Stamp on the rear base rail: "Manufactured by Samuel Peck & C^o."

Stamp on the lens board: "Otto Loehr  Manufacturer  New York"

Stamped assembly number "3" on the lower part of the movable frame of the front standard (top) and on the lower part of the fixed part of the front standard (bottom)

 

 

 

The second of two examples of the Peck wet plate version of the New Haven Stereoscopic View Camera: 5 x 8  Assembly No. 6 having a brass, oval label.

Label on the upper front standard, engraved: "Sam'l Peck & Company / New Haven, Conn."

Assembly number "6" stamped on the lower part of the rising part of the front standard (top) and on the fixed part of the front standard (bottom).  The font and size seen here is the same as on two other Peck cameras, a half-plate Peck Studio Camera (LP49)and a full-plate, single lens Peck Field View Camera (LP684).

Wet-plate stains where the plate holder was placed during exposure.

 

 

 

Date Introduced: - ; Years Manufactured: c.1860's - c.1880
Construction: rear focus via push-pull with focus screw; single swing; reversing by second tripod mount.
Materials: mahogany body; cherry base; black fabric bellows; brass hardware, three-piece lens board.
Sizes Offered: at least 5x8 (Peck); 4x7; 4x8; 5x8 (New Haven)
Notes: 

     This camera is nearly identical to the American Optical Philadelphia Stereo Box, and since Peck sold out to Scovill in 1860, and the American Optical Philadelphia Stereoscopic Camera was introduced in 1870, the Peck Stereoscopic Camera may very well be the precursor of the American Optical Philadelphia Stereoscopic Camera.  The dates suggested here assume this is so.

Upper Camera

     The camera itself is stamped: "Manufactured by Samuel Peck & C^o", whereas the lens board is stamped: "Otto Loehr  Manufacturer  New York".  From about 1869, Otto Loehr had a factory (or more correctly, a shop, since the business of cabinet-making, in which Loehr was trained, was done by hand in small amounts) manufacturing photographic apparatus and camera boxes at 131 and 133 Mercer St., New York, NY (per page 22 of the 1871-1872 Annual Report of The American Institute of the City of New York).  About October, 1874, that factory burned down (Photographic Times Vol. IV No. 46, October 1874, p.160).  The Loehr lens board appears to have been made for this camera (not cut down from a larger lens board), and is the same color, luster and has the same patina as the remainder of the camera.  It is certainly contemporaneous with the camera, if not the only lens board the camera has ever had.

The sticker identifies it as formerly in the Kessler collection by way of the Hillan collection.  Hopefully, the glue on the sticker is reversible; a more classic marking system would be a smaller paper label held on using soluvar, a modern formulation readily soluble in paint thinner, which will not harm old shellac or varnish, such as the tags now installed on the underside of the carriage, on the back side of the lens board, and on the inside cover of the case (every detachable piece) that identify this item as LP718. The wooden case is certainly period, although it may be the work of the owner or a craftsman rather than the factory.

Lower Camera

     The camera wood is not stamped as above, but, instead, an oval brass label proclaims the manufacturer.  Otherwise, it is identical to the other camera.

     Both the upper and lower cameras have identical brand Petzval-type lenses engraved: Gasc. & Charconnet Geo. S. Bryant & Co. Sole Agents Boston, Mass.  This can hardly be a coincidence.  Undoubtedly, Peck had an arrangement with Geo. S. Bryant to supply lenses for their cameras.  This also means that both of the above cameras have their original lenses.

References:
Philadelphia Photographer, April, 1870, p. 100 (introduction of the American Optical Philadelphia Stereoscopic Camera)
Descriptive Catalogue and Price List of the Photographic Apparatus Manufactured by the American Optical Co., Scovill Mfg. Co., proprietors and managers (New York, NY), Sept. 1884, p.76 (Scovill Mfg. Co. New Haven Stereoscopic Camera)
 

 

 

 

Back to Miscellaneous Camera Companies