This extraordinary early quarter-plate-size wet plate collodion camera not only has a wonderful Dallmeyer 2B lens, the camera itself was manufactured by Dallmeyer. According to the Dallmeyer archive, the lens was made on October 14, 1864, definitively dating this to the Civil War era. It is a gorgeous camera, which appears to be made of walnut. Curiously, in this camera the front is stationary and the back moves, but there's no tailboard. The support for the back standard slides in a grooved panel on the bottom board and passes to the front, not the back.
I've never seen another like ...