Dallmeyer Dallon Tele-Anastigmat 508mm f/5.6
J. H. Dallmeyer · Hasselblad 1600F · 1956 · Dallon telephoto
Also known as: Dallmeyer Dallon 508mm · Dallon Tele-Anastigmat 20 inch · Cooke Perkins Hasselblad 508mm
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooke & Perkins mount for Hasselblad | Hasselblad 1600F (Cooke & Perkins helical mount) | 1956 | 488332 — the only Hasselblad-mount Dallon serial on public record, sold by Flints Auctions in November 2021; on Delta Lenses' reconstructed timeline it falls in 1957, just past the 487,603 that ends 1956 | About 113 made around 1956 (Collectiblend); twenty are reported as having gone into Swedish Navy outfits |
- Delta Lenses labels the 1903-onward table's last column "Notes and Anomalies", and the anomalies are visible in the years around this lens: 1954 closes at 459,339 but 1955 opens at 448,128 and 1956 at 453,240, so the annual bands run backwards into one another. The reconstruction is the best available and is not a factory list.
How to tell them apart
Cooke & Perkins mount for Hasselblad:
- Helical focusing mount by Cooke & Perkins Ltd of London, engraved for Victor Hasselblad AB Sweden
- 100mm filters — Hasselblad sold an O4 yellow-orange in that size for it
Serial-range notes
- 453240–487603 (1956) and 466885–497757 (1957)
- The rule for dating one, such as it is. Dallmeyer never published a serial list; the working timeline is the one Delta Lenses reconstructed for 1903 to about 1984 by combining what survives at the Brent Archive with several hundred observed lenses cross-referenced against known production dates, and it is keyed to the date a lens left the workshop rather than the date it was finished. Against it, 1956 runs from 453,240 to 487,603 and 1957 from 466,885 to 497,757. A number in the 45x,xxx to 48x,xxx band therefore fits this lens's stated year, but the bands overlap so heavily that it fits two or three years equally well.
- 488332
- The one serial recorded for a Hasselblad-mount example. Flints Auctions sold it on 18 November 2021 — a black Dallon Tele-Anastigmat f/5.6 508mm in Cooke & Perkins Hasselblad screw mount, with pistol grip, lens support handle and frame finder in the maker's fitted case, for £298. The number sits 729 above the 487,603 that closes Delta's 1956 and inside its 1957 band, so the one dated example points a year later than the about-1956 that Collectiblend gives for the run.
- roughly 4500–65000
- The range for which real records exist, and it is a century too early for this lens. The surviving Dallmeyer books, digitised by Seán MacKenna and held at Brent Archives, cover 1863 to 1902: a lens in that band can be traced to what it was made as, who made it, when it was sold and to whom. Delta Lenses records that for the 20th century the lens books are missing for the great majority of the years, and that the handwritten Glass Ticket Register covering six decades survives only because a former employee kept it.
Specifications
- Formula
- Dallon telephoto
- Designed by
- Booth L. B. — designed the Dallon telephoto construction, patented 1919–20
- Construction
- 4 elements / 2 groups
- Aperture range
- f/5.6–f/45
- Country
- United Kingdom
What reviewers say
No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.
Optical formula — Dallon telephoto
History
The longest lens ever offered for a pre-1957 Hasselblad, and the only British one. Hasselblad Historical lists it under Cooke & Perkins — the London firm that built the helical focusing mount — while the glass is Dallmeyer’s, a twenty-inch Dallon Tele-Anastigmat of a design that was already old when it was fitted.
The Dallon construction is L. B. Booth’s, patented in Britain in 1919 and 1920: a true telephoto of two separately achromatised cemented pairs, a positive group in front and a negative group well behind it, which is what lets the barrel be markedly shorter than the focal length. Dallmeyer sold the same cells for plate cameras for decades. What makes this one a Hasselblad lens is the mount, engraved for Victor Hasselblad AB Sweden.
It is very scarce. Collectiblend puts the run at about 113 around 1956, and forum accounts describe twenty of those going into outfits for the Swedish Navy — which fits the pattern of Hasselblad’s earliest business, since the company had begun by building aerial cameras for the Swedish forces during the war.
Practical details are thin. The lens takes 100mm filters, and Hasselblad catalogued an O4 yellow-orange in that size specifically for it. No weight, no minimum focus and no price has surfaced in any source consulted, and the cross-section here is drawn from Booth’s patent rather than from this particular barrel, so it shows the construction rather than the individual lens.
This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.
Example photos
Sample photo wanted — shot with a Dallmeyer Dallon Tele-Anastigmat 508mm f/5.6? We'd love to feature it (with credit).
Live listings
The listings collector hasn't run for this family yet — check back soon, or search the marketplaces directly meanwhile.