It's a tought task, to follow my anouncement to show only things not already known from Hr. Prochnow's Rollei Report, especialy for Report 1. In the case of Report "6" it is way easier, since Rollei "makes" a new (made in Far-East) junkish cheap camera - simply by brand engineering - every week.
These three thingies aint no alarm clock prototypes, though they look
very similar to granny's alarm clock you "fixed" in your early days.
They are studies for 6x6cm focal plane shutter TLR cameras!
The shape of shutter speed dials and the use of the old time scales
lets me conclude these samples were made before 1955.
The little crank here looks a lot like the one on the prewar baby Rolleiflex ...
Unfortunately I don't know any further details, the shutter cloth is
brittle and the longer shutter speeds are rather sticky.
Seems already in medieval times customers had a strong desire for
other, longer focal length lenses.
Technological basis was a Rolleiflex Standard.
The lens mount has a fine thread for front and rear element.
And there is cozy anti reflex flocking in the back.
Focusing is performed with a combination of the old four spindle
drive and a modern thread, in the front:
"2,8m" above / "infinity" shown below
It took quite some time until I found out the "lens" is/was interchangeable
To find out about this I even had to read ...
Reading things up (in the old patent) had another advantage: I found out
it ("the thing") dates from the 1930ies and reading more (a book on the
Contax raengefinder cameras, I came to the conclusion the focus-drive
(with the three blades) looks somewhat close to that of the "old" (then
brandnew!) Contax rangefinder camera. So maybe this (somehow unused
patend) was a little "inspired by" the Contax and maybe people at F&H
just wanted to keep some doors open for future developments.
A friendly jeweler in Turkey has a sign in his store "Hier werden Sie
nur ganz wenig beschissen!" (a message to his German customers, "Here
you will get screwed just a tiny bit!"). In Hamburg we have three photo
dealers worth a visit, two of them have a silimar (invisible!) sign just
like that hanging in their stores. One of them is "Leica only", the other
one has some Leicas too plus the baby Rolleiflex shown below left:
To the right my regular everyday prewar baby Rolleiflex - hey, what is
this doing in a museum?
No transport gear, no focusing, no film stage & rollers, no spool holders,
no flocking, ... the taking lens will tell the story ...
Separates the junk from true factory made dummies.
Did anbody ever ask what color the Ducarfilters for Autochromeplates were?
"What?" "Defective, totally common and included in the Rollei Report 1! PR26/3."
"Well yes, kind of, but B&W pic only, and these here aren't included at all." :
"Ducar 5,5cm with 28,5mm push on mount" (here shown with Adapters for the
Baby-Heidoscops 25mm push on mount). Sorry, I have no idea, why they were
made in 5,5cm and 7,5cm versions.
A visitor left a decisive clue in my gueststbook ... Agfacolor-Ultra-Plates needed
a compensation for the thickness of the glass (the emulsion is on the plate's
back!) and I assume 5,5cm / 7,5cm focal length need different compensation.
Thanks Michael!
Usually painted brown with lots of disgusting green stuff (left, and except
for the green stuff just like it is written in the book PR 131/3), but it seems
some were painted black (right).
You think to have (seen) them all:
And all of a sudden you have the old push-on shade (PR 123/1) in two sizes
(the big ones are always swallowing the small ones).
Same story, well almost, with the lens caps of the early Rolleiflex:
According to my little black Rolleiflex-Bible (Book 1 Prochnow) at first no caps
came with the cameras and later Rollei supplied the metal cap shown in the center.
But ... I keep tripping over the caps shown left and right - aaand since these look
so much like the Heidoscops' caps and the Heidoscop-caps are lost so often,
my conclusion is: These are the original caps of the early Rolleiflexes, but they
were lost so often that it was assumed they never existed in the first place.
Same story, well almost, with the lens caps of the Magnar:
Aluminum or leather with golden imprint? Are two lenscaps a good reason to
show off my Magnar stuff? Not even knowing which is the right cap, not to
mention the uncertain A37 Bernotar (just look at the two lovely white index-
marks on the rim!)? No, there has got to be more to it:
What a treasure: Green filter "für Magnar" with serial number "Nr 000 000" (it's
not in the Prochnow ;-) and remember how tough it was to get the regular
filters "für Magnar" !
Other question to all you number geeks out there:
Who's got a Magnar below Nr 2449813 (as seen on the box) or above über Nr
2450792 (thanks G.H. from B.!) or maybe another Zeiss-lens within that range?
