Stewartry
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| 105mm f/3.5 Trinol Anastigmats mounted for Leica and for Exakta. image by Adrian Gee (Image rights) |
Stewartry[1] is the brand name of photographic accessories made by G.B. Montgomery Manufacturing Co. Ltd. of Glasgow, Scotland, just after the Second World War. The brand was used on enlargers, flash-bulb guns and accessories, and copying accessories;[2] but is best known on lens-mounts fitted to lenses made by other British makers: the 105mm f/3.5 Trinol Anastigmat by National Optical Company of Leicester[3][4] and the 3½-inch f/3.5 Definex by Ross.[5][6][7] Stewartry mounts are for Leica or Contax, or for Exakta, as pictured here. Stewartry did not re-brand the lenses, which retain their maker's engravings. The Ross examples seen are engraved 'Coated Lenses' on the front. Only some later Trinols are coated (according to a post at Photrio).[8]
The company appears to have closed in 1950.[9]
Notes
- ↑ The name presumably refers to the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright (Wikipedia), an old designation for the former county of Kirkcudbrightshire, now part of the Dumfries and Galloway region in the south-west of Scotland. Kirkcudbright was a stewartry because it was governed by a steward, not a sheriff.
- ↑ Advertisements in Popular Photography, all at Google Books:
*Stewartry enlargers, lenses and other accessories, July 1946, p.93.
*Copying attachments (apparently close-focus mounts), flash synchronisers, and lenses, August 1946, p.119.
*Enlargers and copying attachments, also promising a new photographic magazine; December 1946, p.21.
*Copying attachments, February 1947, p.31 (with a shameless appeal to US servicemen who had been posted to Glasgow). - ↑ 105mm f/3.5 Trinol Anastigmat for Leica M39 mount serial no.035283; focus scale in feet on black barrel; sold at the fifteenth Westlicht Auction, in May 2009.
- ↑ 105mm f/3.5 Trinol Anastigmat for Leica serial no.034147; chrome focus scale; also sold at the fifteenth Westlicht Auction.
- ↑ 3½-inch f/3.5 Definex for Contax serial no.212799; aperture ring also engraved '91mm 25/24035'; metric focus scale engraved on the original black-painted barrel; offered for sale at the 35th Leitz Photographica Auction, in November 2019.
- ↑ 3½-inch f/3.5 Definex for Contax serial no.212231; aperture ring also engraved '89mm', and chrome (or aluminium?) foot focus scale is screwed on over the original barrel; offered for sale at the 44th Leitz Auction, in June 2024.
- ↑ 3½-inch f/3.5 Definex for Contax serial no.212288 with foot scale, sold with a Nikon S3 outfit at the 30th Westlicht Auction, in November 2016.
- ↑ Forum post Details of Trinol lens at Photrio (see post 4; he is quoting Wilkinson & Glanvill's Lens Collector's Vade Mecum).
- ↑ Notice of a petition for winding-up in November 1950, and Notice of the winding-up Order in December 1950, in the Edinburgh Gazette (the official public record). A search at the Gazette shows company returns, changes of directors, etc. for a company of the same name in the 1970s, but it seems likely that it is unrelated.
Links
- G.B. Montgomery at Grace's Guide
