Designed in the 1930s, these beauties were built as the first cinematic fixed focal length set in the USA. The rehousing was done by Zero Optik, who describe the special features of the optics as follows:
The combination of field curvature, single-layer coating and primitive glass polishing techniques produces images not possible with modern optics, without sacrificing clarity or resolution.

Hollywood classics such as ‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939), Orson Wells' “Touch of Evil” (1958) and many more were filmed on Original Baltar. Most recently, the optics gave Robert Eggers' “The Lighthouse” (2019) an unmistakable look.