Rochester Optical Co.

Premo View Camera

Date Introduced: 1905 ; Years Manufactured: 1905-c.1915
Construction: front focus via rack and pinion (gears internal to base); double swing; three-piece lensboard; reversing by removable back
Materials: mahogany body; mahogany bed; black fabric bellows; brass hardware;
Sizes Offered: 6.5x8.5; 8x10 (photos)
Notes: English compact style.  Premo was the brand name of a popular brand of leather-covered, fold-out, red-bellows "hand and stand" plate cameras made by ROC starting in about 1895.   The perhaps popular name was applied to this view camera in 1905.  The camera has the built in tripod head similar to the Carlton, but it also has 4 rubber feet on its bottom as well.  The camera above is missing two critical knurled knobs on the sides of its front standard.  These knobs screw into extremely shallow sliding metal plates - the shallowness of the threads allows them to come off and be lost.
References:
Premo Cameras, Rochester Optical Co., c. 1905, p. 38-39 ("in introducing this camera to our customers")
Andrew J. Lloyd (Boston, MA) Catalog, 1907
Premo Cameras, Rochester Optical Division, Eastman Kodak Co., 1908, p. 37
Photo Supplies, Sweet, Wallach & Co. (Chicago, IL) Catalog, 1908, p. 54
Premo Cameras, Rochester Optical Division, Eastman Kodak Co., 1910, p. 32
Photo Materials, George Murphy, Inc. (New York, NY), 1910-1911, p. 45
Photographic Materials and Supplies, Gloeckner & Newby Company (New York, NY), c.1910, p. 10
Premo Cameras, Rochester Optical Division, Eastman Kodak Co., 1912, p. 34
Eastman Professional Photographic Apparatus and Materials, c. 1915, p. 46 (R.O. Division)
 

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