Qestion about Spiratone lens...

[spiralcity]

I won this lens on eaby. I never used a Spiratone so I thought I would give it a shot and see how it performed. The price was right and I was one of only two bidders.

SPIRATONE 2.8/135mm M42 SCREW MOUNT





My question is : Was Spiratone only a distributor or did they manufacture lenses?

Also : If they where only distributors I would like to know which company or companies manufactured their lenses.

Does anyone have any input on the lens I posted?
It would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,
Kevin

[luisalegria]

Spiratone was a distributor and mail-order dealer.

They sold stuff from a vast range of manufacturers.

Your lens looks like a late 1950's-early 1960's item, fixed mount apparently, so I would tend to give it an earlier date. I can't tell if it resembles any particular lens with a known manufacturer.

We could use a bigger picture, maybe something will click.

[Abbazz]

[casualcollector]

In the early 70s Spiratone bought lenses from Sigma and Sun. They had two versions of an 18mm wide angle. One from Sigma, then later from Tokina.

[spiralcity]

Thanks to all for the replys.

Here are some larger files of the lens.
Hopefully someone will know something about this lens.

[luisalegria]

The styling reminds me of a 1950's Tamron, like the 135/4.5.

These were often sold through third parties in those days, like Taika/Aetna and Soligor, so why not Spiratone ? There were a number of undocumented fixed-mount designs made by Taisei Kogaku (later Tamron). This could be one of them. The 135/4.5 Tamron I have from this period is very good.

Alternately, it has some structural similarities with an early 135/2.8 t-mount Accura I have that I suspect may be a Tokina (Tokyo Koki). Thats a pretty good lens also.

The third guess is Cosina, unfortunately I have only seen what are probably a later preset series.

The fourth, fifth and sixth possibilities are Fujita, Komine(Nittoh Kogaku) and Kiron (Kino). Fujita was definitely in the business at that time, but this doesn't look like their style. I don't know when the others started in the SLR business, though Komine/Nittoh was certainly supplying rangefinder lenses in those days.

Sun is an outside possibility.

I think Tanaka, Arco and Zunow were defunct by then or not in that business.

[spiralcity]

[luisalegria]

Yep, these third party things were nearly all presets. Automatic and semi-automatic lenses tended to come from the camera manufacturers in those days - except for Exakta of course.

Another outside possibility is Komura, but its not their style at all.

[spiralcity]