Chronoscope

Designed for super8 cameras....the smallest 2x scope out there.
And believe it or not?  This thing is superior to the much-drooled-over baby hypergonar. Significantly so.
I own two baby kowa 2x's, and one baby hypergonar....all of them are in near-new condition. The hypergonar was practically "New Old Stock" shape.
Anyway, here's a couple pics of it mounted tucked inside a Rapido FVD8a, along with a screengrab of fellas on the porch talking. Also some pics from around the net of what the baby kowa looks like by itself (since mine are mounted in rapido FMJ, dont feel like removing right now)
Shot not lit or anything...just stuck a camera there and recorded a bit; GH5 was on Natural profile, in 4:3 "4k anamorphic" mode (3328x2496), ISO 800.
Taking lens is a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8, mounted on a 0.71x Zhongyi speedbooster. Aperture was set at 2.8 (on the lens).
Yup...the baby Kowa is able to cover 50mm at around APS-C/S35, with no real vignetting/portholing on corners/sides. The sides have been cropped to achieve 2.35, but the cropped portions were fully visible. Of course...such coverage requires careful choice of taking lens, with a small front element that is very far forward so kowa rear lens can be very close.
The flares are soft, understated, and beautiful...pinkish purple.  I'll upload a test clip showing that off as soon as I get a moment today.
 

I know it's probably a long shot, but...does ANYBODY here know ANYTHING about this thing?
I have scoured the internet, including Chinese sites, as best I can...there is next to nothing.
As I understand it, the modern Chinese government would prefer people not know such things even exist....they want people thinking that China was not capable of highly advanced industrial achievments until AFTER the so-called "economic reforms" of the ~80's+.
Obviously...they were indeed capable. Everything I can find dates this lens to somewhere in 1979 to 1983.  They studied English, French and German cinema lenses and glass in their efforts.
Obviously by that serial number...not very many of these were made. I cannot find another example literally ANYWHERE.
No rental houses...western hemisphere OR in the east. Truly...a Unicorn.
It is on the way back to me from being refreshed and modernized with PL and gears, and will be available for rental to appropriate customers/projects VERY soon...along with a matching prime lens (50mm T2, exact same coating), for low light or handheld/stabilizer use.
I wonder which films this was used on? I suspect every major Mainland-Chinese production made since the late 70s likely used this zoom, until trade began to open up and use of western cine equipment became more prevalent in China.
Think "Raise the Red Lantern", "Farewell My Concubine", etc...not to mention the many martial arts films of earlier years.
Anyway...I hope someone can tell me more about this wonderful piece of history, and I hope to see it put back to use very soon on some cool projects!! ....Would love to see this put to use on a period martial-arts feature for example...

Darn, what a thread! Tasty as tasty  anamorphic can be! Whatever that means.  It means: Wow!:)

Obviously I was just joking with my statement because I think that each of these little beauties has its own character and that it is up to those who use them to enhance their characteristics and make good use of them artistically in what they want to represent.
 

Designed for super8 cameras....the smallest 2x scope out there.
And believe it or not?  This thing is superior to the much-drooled-over baby hypergonar. Significantly so.
I own two baby kowa 2x's, and one baby hypergonar....all of them are in near-new condition. The hypergonar was practically "New Old Stock" shape.
Anyway, here's a couple pics of it mounted tucked inside a Rapido FVD8a, along with a screengrab of fellas on the porch talking. Also some pics from around the net of what the baby kowa looks like by itself (since mine are mounted in rapido FMJ, dont feel like removing right now)
Shot not lit or anything...just stuck a camera there and recorded a bit; GH5 was on Natural profile, in 4:3 "4k anamorphic" mode (3328x2496), ISO 800.
Taking lens is a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8, mounted on a 0.71x Zhongyi speedbooster. Aperture was set at 2.8 (on the lens).
Yup...the baby Kowa is able to cover 50mm at around APS-C/S35, with no real vignetting/portholing on corners/sides. The sides have been cropped to achieve 2.35, but the cropped portions were fully visible. Of course...such coverage requires careful choice of taking lens, with a small front element that is very far forward so kowa rear lens can be very close.
The flares are soft, understated, and beautiful...pinkish purple.  I'll upload a test clip showing that off as soon as I get a moment today.
 

Designed for super8 cameras....the smallest 2x scope out there.
And believe it or not?  This thing is superior to the much-drooled-over baby hypergonar. Significantly so.
I own two baby kowa 2x's, and one baby hypergonar....all of them are in near-new condition. The hypergonar was practically "New Old Stock" shape.
Anyway, here's a couple pics of it mounted tucked inside a Rapido FVD8a, along with a screengrab of fellas on the porch talking. Also some pics from around the net of what the baby kowa looks like by itself (since mine are mounted in rapido FMJ, dont feel like removing right now)
Shot not lit or anything...just stuck a camera there and recorded a bit; GH5 was on Natural profile, in 4:3 "4k anamorphic" mode (3328x2496), ISO 800.
Taking lens is a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8, mounted on a 0.71x Zhongyi speedbooster. Aperture was set at 2.8 (on the lens).
Yup...the baby Kowa is able to cover 50mm at around APS-C/S35, with no real vignetting/portholing on corners/sides. The sides have been cropped to achieve 2.35, but the cropped portions were fully visible. Of course...such coverage requires careful choice of taking lens, with a small front element that is very far forward so kowa rear lens can be very close.
The flares are soft, understated, and beautiful...pinkish purple.  I'll upload a test clip showing that off as soon as I get a moment today.
 

I've had 8 Kowa-8s (also 8Bs in there). Sample variance is huge. Flares can be all different colours, sometimes matching front to back, sometimes not. Some are much sharper than others even when tuned (normal with all scopes). I kept these in the shadow a long time, but when I first stumbled on one I couldn't find even one picture of one on the internet, or even a single word that they existed, it felt like digging up treasure.
I've made some videos with them, but prefer the isco 8s too be totally honest (although how wide a kowa8 can go if you know the right taking lens is pretty amazing).

This whole film I shot with Kowa-8s -
 

the rare anamorphot 22/1.5x Zeiss ikon beats both of them, sorry! 😉 

Just got one today. Looking to get a proper clamp for mine.

 
I found this on the Anamorphic Shooter group on FB. It doesn't seem to be the one from Rapido. Looks more like redstan but I don't recall if redstan made any of these.

The Nipponscope was a different system. Nipponscope was the other widely used anamorphic system in Japan. Early versions utilized a front anamorphic group that could be attached to a number of different prime lenses (mainly Canon rangefinder glass). The focus ring was on the taking lens and the focus on the anamorphic was effected by lining up the slot and the pin in the mount. Later versions incorporated a variable diopter system so the focus ring was on the anamorphic group. This system was later exported to Europe and became the basis of the Technovision system, as well as (in more refined form) JDC Xtal Express.
The Kowas were evolved from the early NAC prime lenses which used a similar arrangement as the early Nipponscope. Dual synchro focus and interchangeable taking lenses. Later on, when block lenses became standard, the familar Kowa Prominars arrived. Your adapter is probably from this era. It does not seem to have any provision for synchronized focus and the pin is probably to keep the lens probably aligned.
Go to Instagram and search #nipponscope if you want to see a bunch of other examples of funky and weird old 'Scope lenses like your own.

This was obviously focused separately from the prime lens. There doesn't seem to be any mechanism for synchronizing focus with a prime lens. Dual focus didn't die out until the late 60s, especially in Japan. I remember seeing an interview with Kurosawa's DP talking about how they had to have two ACs pulling focus on Yojimbo because of the double focus set-up.
This lens was probably used with 50mm lenses and up. Probably 75mm and 100mm too, but not too far beyond that. European attachments like Franscope and Totalscope functioned the same way.

The Olympus 45mm f1.8 sounds nice. The Olympus Pen F 38mm f1.8 is a personal favorite of mine. Cheap, sharp and full of character. Other wise I use machine vision c-mount lens. 
 

Your on! Baby Hypergonar locked and loaded. 

hehehehe.
Interesting, dont recall any problem with it but let me actually give infinity a bit more of a proper test.
WE'LL DO A SHOOTOUT!!
scifi-Old-west style, pewpewpew (anamorphic laser-beams)

I know that there were different series of the Kowa anamorphics with the designation 35-X. The most common series is the 35BS, but there was also 35B, 35BR, and 35BE. The housing on this lens resembles the early 35B series, so this was probably an additional adapter that was used for B-camera and second unit photography on Japanese films.  It's double focus obviously, and at the time (circa 1964), combined block lenses were almost universal, so this probably wasn't used much.

Nice and sharp!
I have one on the way but the shape isn't as good as yours. These are really nice gems!

Here is some simple test footage of the baby kowa, as promised!
Taking lens is a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8, mounted on a 0.71x Zhongyi speedbooster. Aperture varied between around 5.6 to 8 (on the lens, pre-speedboost).
GH5 Camera settings: Natural profile, ISO 200, 4:3 "4k Anamorphic" mode (3328x2496).
Desqueezed in Resolve, cropped sides to 2.35, rendered in DCI 4k 'scope (4096x1716).  Slight contrast and exposure adjustments, slight sharpening added. Otherwise straight out of camera.
 

Designed for super8 cameras....the smallest 2x scope out there.
And believe it or not?  This thing is superior to the much-drooled-over baby hypergonar. Significantly so.
I own two baby kowa 2x's, and one baby hypergonar....all of them are in near-new condition. The hypergonar was practically "New Old Stock" shape.
Anyway, here's a couple pics of it mounted tucked inside a Rapido FVD8a, along with a screengrab of fellas on the porch talking. Also some pics from around the net of what the baby kowa looks like by itself (since mine are mounted in rapido FMJ, dont feel like removing right now)
Shot not lit or anything...just stuck a camera there and recorded a bit; GH5 was on Natural profile, in 4:3 "4k anamorphic" mode (3328x2496), ISO 800.
Taking lens is a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8, mounted on a 0.71x Zhongyi speedbooster. Aperture was set at 2.8 (on the lens).
Yup...the baby Kowa is able to cover 50mm at around APS-C/S35, with no real vignetting/portholing on corners/sides. The sides have been cropped to achieve 2.35, but the cropped portions were fully visible. Of course...such coverage requires careful choice of taking lens, with a small front element that is very far forward so kowa rear lens can be very close.
The flares are soft, understated, and beautiful...pinkish purple.  I'll upload a test clip showing that off as soon as I get a moment today.