Category: Viewfinder

October 19, 2022

Ducati Simplex

Ducati Simplex Ducati Simplex current value  Ducati Sogno current value After WWI, Italy was rebuilding its industrial infrastructure, boosted by a government ministry created for this purpose. The traditionally industrial north saw heavyweights and entrepreneurs getting into industries championed by the Germans. Such was the Ducati family, who set shop in Bologna, making small engines and branching into optical instruments...

Categories 35mm half frame/Ducati/Italy/Mini camera/Viewfinder Comments: 0

October 5, 2022

Petri Color 35 E

Petri Color 35 E Fully Automatic Petry Color 35 E user manual Current values Petri Color 35 E Ihagee Exa 35 E Brown Phokina Compact 35 S Cosina Compact 35 S Petri Micro Compact   In the 1960s, photography became accessible to all walks of life. The rigid contact print formats gave way to the Kodak 135 format, so old-style...

Categories 35 mm/Compact/Japan/Petri/Viewfinder Comment: 1

September 28, 2022

SEM Kim / Baby SEM

SEM Kim / Baby SEM SEM Kim current value SEM Baby current value Sometimes I feel I have to find another hobby. Looking for camera information online yields either an avalanche of primarily copy-and-paste information or hardly anything of value. Some years ago, I searched for Taron cameras, which coincided with the release of a movie starring a certain Taron...

Categories 35 mm/Compact/France/SEM/Viewfinder Comment: 1

September 14, 2022

Becnini Comet 3

Becnini Comet 3 Comet 3 / III current value More about Bencini The Italian camera industry, which is no more, had a few high-end camera makers and some that made cameras for all, to meet the up-and-coming hobby. The flag bearers were Ferrania and Bencini. I may favor Ferrania as my first camera, back in 1962 or about that was...

Categories 127/Bencini/Italy/Viewfinder Comments: 2

September 3, 2022

Sugaya Minimax 110 EE

Sugaya Minimax 110 EE Sugaya Minimax 110 EE current value   Haste makes waste. I was working on the Pentax 110 SLR cameras when I noted a remark about an obscure (to me) camera, the Sugaya Minimax 110 EE, being the forerunner of the Pentax 110 cameras. Before long, I had one on my desk. Besides physical size and format,...

Categories 110/Japan/Mini camera/Sugaya/Viewfinder Comments: 0

August 10, 2022

New Olympic Kinsi

New Olympic Kinsi Current values: New Olympic Semi Olympic  Riken Semi Kinsi Riken Kinsi New Olympic Kinsi One of the obscure Japanese cameras with many fathers on record, depends on where you look. The model I have on my desk is marked ‘Kinsi’ on the front, ‘The New Olympic Camera Worlks’ on the side latch. The Kinsi is reported to...

Categories 120/Japan/Olympus/Viewfinder Comments: 0

June 29, 2022

Oehler Infra

Oehler Infra Oehler Infra current value In post-war Japan,  about half a million allied troops stayed for nearly a decade. The economy was in tatters, so the allied poured much effort and money to rebuild it, not the least of which was the soldiers’ buying power supplementing it. There were few outlets for that cash, as GIs would only buy...

Categories Karat/Obscure/Viewfinder/West Germany Comments: 0

October 13, 2021

Nagel Ranca

Dr. Nagel Ranca Nagel Ranca 46/0 current value Nagel Ranca 46/1 current value   I got this Ranca at the first break after the first COVID wave, following a long dry period of not adding any new camera. I drove upcountry for over an hour to pick up a Rollei when the seller pulled out “another old camera”. Nikon, Canon,...

Categories 127/Mini camera/Viewfinder/West Germany Comments: 2

March 10, 2021

Zeiss Ikon Contina family

Zeiss Ikon Contina family model list Zeiss Ikon of Germany was the equivalent of the American Kodak, where both companies had amalgamated several manufacturers under one roof. Zeiss Ikon was born out of the merger of  Carl Zeiss, ICA, Contessa-Nettel, Ernemann and Goerz. The combined company kept using the original models’ names under the combined brand, which may confuse today’s...

Categories 35 mm/Rangefinder/Viewfinder/West Germany/Zeiss Ikon Comment: 1

October 30, 2020

Canon Dial 35

Canon Dial 35 Preamble On a bright summer day sometime in the early 1980s, I was negotiating the narrow streets of Salzburg, Austria. Being a medieval city and spread around a hill, streets are winding to boot. As a navigation instrument, I used a large sheet of paper printed in many colours, which, for the benefit of the younger readers,...

Categories 35mm half frame/Canon/Japan/Spring loaded/Viewfinder Comments: 2