Smithsonian Camera #1

This is the most beautiful of the Semmendinger cameras in the Smithsonian Museum archives.  This is a 4″ x 5″ camera with rotary stops.  It was given to the Smithsonian Museum as a gift on July 15, 1927 from Frank Chambers of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  This camera is labeled “Excelsior” and clearly states that it was manufactured in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Smithsonian Camera #2

The Smithsonian has an absolutely wonderful full-sized patent model of a multi-image Semmendinger wet-plate camera (Patent No. 27,241). This camera looks like a stereo camera, but it does not produce stereo pairs. It just has two separate lenses. It can make 12 small circular images on a plate. 

Smithsonian Camera #3

This camera has two sets of bellows and represents U.S. patent 29,523.  It is interesting that this model is painted black.  The top of this camera reads “Aug. Semmendinger, N.Y.” indicating that was one of August Semmendinger’s first two patents from when he lived in New York City. 

George Eastman House Camera

This camera resides in the George Eastman House’s state-of-the art, climate controlled vault. 

California Museum of Photography, University of California Riverside

This camera has several features which distinguish it from typical examples of Semmendinger cameras, the most unusual of which is the back. It not only swings, tilts, and shifts for perspective correction but is designed so the the plate holder may move sideways for making more than one photograph on a single plate. Like all cameras of its era, this one is heavily stained in the area of the plate holder.

An interesting fact about this specific camera is that it was featured on an episode of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

California Museum of Photography, University of California Riverside

This is a 5×7″ camera with straight bellows.  This camera appears to be a studio camera design that just happens to have a folding bed to make it (slightly) portable.  The lens board is moved up and down via the knob at its top, but is not readily removable, being inside the front standard.  The back may have been altered to be spring-loaded for dry plates – the original wet-plate holder would be inserted instead of the ground glass. 

As of 2019, this camera is housed at the California Museum of Photography, a part of the University of California in Riverside, CA. 

J. Paul Getty Museum

The The J. Paul Getty Museum houses a Semmendinger camera in its archived collection.  This is a mammoth plate wet-collodion camera with Dallmeyer combination portrait-landscape lens; lens cap (modern facsimile); two printing frames; tripod; dark slide, clear glass board, and dark cloth with wire frame.  This camera was incorrectly labeled as a camera from “John Semmendinger.”  The author of this web page worked with the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2010 to determine that the true maker of the camera was August Semmendinger.  Detail of the August Semmendinger marking is below the image of the camera itself. 

Private Collection

This camera is a wet-plate, 7×7″, fixed tailboard and square-cornered bellows with brass-barreled lens. It has a ground glass, but it does not swing to one side. There is no rising front, tilt, or swing back. 

Private Collection

This Semmendinger stereo camera has radial drive lenses that are slotted for stops. It does not have a correct focusing back and is missing a couple of pieces of hardware.

Private Collection

c. 1870’s Wet Plate Camera for full plate ambrotypes or tintypes or wet plate collodion negatives. This unusually designed camera features a rear standard that protects the square cornered leather bellows when the camera is closed and the folding bed protects the ground glass from breakage. At the base of the front standard is a small storage area that can be found behind the hinged door. The fixed front standard contains a movable lens board that has rise and fall capabilities. 

Private Collection

c. 1875 “Excelsior” wet-plate studio portrait camera. 8×10″. Made of light mahogany with large brass Gasc & Charconnet portrait lens. 

Private Collection

c. 1874, this Semmendinger camera has a 10×10″ ground glass.  There is no plate holder with the camera.  This is the camera pictured on page 885 of the McKeown Price Guide to Classic Cameras.  This camera now resides in a private collection.

Private Collection

This is a studio version in excellent condition. The Semmendinger name, “Excelsior,” and the 1873 patent date are engraved into the camera. The lens on it is a very early Darlot Opticien lens made in the 1860s which makes it contemporary with the Semmendinger camera which has a patent date of 1873. The lens board is not the original, but it was fabricated by a very fine cabinet maker who did a terrific job in replicating one. It looks very proper with the camera. The back of the camera is very old, but it may be a dry plate back rather than a wet plate back.

Private Collection

This seems to be a tin type camera with a vertical format. The back is partitioned off for four images. Semmendinger’s name is stamped on the tailboard (rear right).  The first line says “Semmendinger” second line says “Maker NY”. The camera also has a piece of paper stuck to the wood work on the same corner as the name. The paper has numbers, possibly “x291 or x391” and possibly followed by additional figures. It looks like a deliberate attachment to the camera. This may be a date or production number.  This camera may date as far back as 1860.

Private Collection

This is a studio version in excellent condition. A large camera, it measures 14×14″.  The Semmendinger name and Excelsior are engraved into the camera. There is a date: Aug. 6, 1874 also on the camera.  The lens is a Darlot Opticien wide angle lens. 

Private Collection

This Semmendinger camera is part of the private collection of Matthew Isenburg.

Private Collection

Private Collection

Private Collection

Private Collection

This Semmendinger was found on eBay in December, 2018. It features a Darlot Opticien Paris #29.1184 lens. The only missing piece is the knob which raises and lowers the lens board. 

Private Collection

10×10 Wet Plate August Semmendinger Camera From Fort Lee New Jersey with a Holmes Booth Haydens Lens From New York NY – This Camera Has It’s Original Wet Plate Holder

Private Collection

This Semmendinger camera was found on eBay in October, 2019. It was made in 1873, and is of the Model 6 12×12 design. 
This camera is missing the screw which operates the swing on the back, but is otherwise in good functional order. 

Private Collection

This camera has been sold at least twice on eBay in the last 3 years, most recently in December 2019.

Private Collection

This camera measures 26 × 14 × 14 in with a 1857 Voigtlander Lens. It was most recently listed for sale on Green Mountain Camera for $4,500.

Unidentified Semmendinger Camera

This camera was found in an eBay listing and has since been broken – according to the eBay user who pulled the auction 2 days after bidding began.

Unidentified Semmendinger Camera

This camera was found during an exhaustive Internet search.  This is an Excelsior 1 manufactured in Fort Lee, NJ.  No other information about this camera is known to the author of this web page at this time.