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 1855 and sold out by 1860.

6½ x 8½

Date Introduced: - ; Years Manufactured: c. 1855-1860
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 lensboard is painted black.
Sizes Offered: 6½x8½
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 lensboard.  How does one know that this lensboard, 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 lensboard 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 lensboards bearing that stamp were made in the factory, regardless of finish.

References:
 

Back to Rochester Optical Co.