A classic camera!

[Kattt]

Any guesses?

[Franco Darioli]

it's a 1937 Compass. Made in Switzerland by Jaeger LeCoultre.
It has a few interesting bits inside…

Franco

[Kattt]

Franco, that is my brother holding it. He says it's 1938…

[BlackHatGuy]

You can buy one on eBay right now for only $5,000!

[Kattt]

[Franco Darioli]

Katharina
see if your brother can beat this one..

sorry about the poor quality. it is a copy of a print. I offloaded that one sometime ago.
Franco
BTW, the other one is a Ducati Sogno

[Kattt]

He's not here to say….He has a collection of cameras and actually uses them and does the developing. I'll pm you a link where you can see.

What is yours?

[Franco Darioli]

I'll tell you tomorrow.
I want to see if anyone can guess .
But here is a clue : it's unique.
Franco
BTW, it is a real camera, not "photoshopped"

[Eugene Smith]

I'll take a stab.

It's definitely an old Leica rangefinder of some sort, has that classic Leica rangefinder shape. Judging by the height, it used a smaller roll film format (35mm?). Whatever it may be, it's pre- 1920's and 1930's… yours has a brass lens bezel, not stainless.

[Eugene Smith]

Ah! I couldn't see it through the lens on your glasses, the photo is blurry, but you're looking through a non-glass element viewfinder!

[Rick Dreher]

Agreed–I think it's an Ur-Leica, which would make it fabulously rare and costly. As to why they let Aussie rabble handle one, that's anybody's guess. ;-)

http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ur-Leica

Cheers,

Rick

p.s. That Compass is the craziest thing I've seen in ages. I can't imagine actually using one of the blades, what with a camera attached.

[Jim Colten]

it's a 1937 Compass. Made in Switzerland by Jaeger LeCoultre.
It has a few interesting bits inside…

A Swiss Army camera :-)

Looks like quite a piece of engineering work!

[Kattt]

The compass was made with less than 100 pieces…

[Franco Darioli]

Katharina
I have handled several Ducati (cameras…) over the years but never had that I can remember one in very good condition. The one your brother is holding looks mint. So a very nice collectors piece.

"my camera"
Well I wish..
Rick was correct . It is this one :

THE Ur Leica, one of three made by the "father" of the 35mm format , Oscar Barnak.
All three were slightly different , therefore they are truly unique.
They were all made around 1913 and from them a production model was made in 1923
The first production run was of 25 cameras and one of them was recently sold for about 1.9 million dollars.
Of the 3 UR Leica (Ur means original in German) one disappeared and there is no record of it (however I was told by the Leica Museum curator how it differed from the one they have) the other was a few years ago in the hands of a Japanese collector (according to Leica) and the one in my hands is stored in a bank vault in … (I'll tell you another time)

http://www.fdtimes.com/news/leica/first-leica/

and some more info here :
http://www.overgaard.dk/leica_history.html
So for a few minutes I had in my hands possibly the most expensive camera in the world as well as a piece of history.
(BTW, I fired the shutter a few times changing shutter speed too, some of my colleagues panicked and the Leica guys smiled nervously. But it does still work…)
By that stage I had in my pocket a pre production sample of a new compact camera that a Panasonic division had just made.
I spotted that one going around the fabric the day before and asked if I could test it. The product manager from the Pana factory (called then Western Electric) was there personally to talk business with the Leica people so I got a chance to talk to him too.
(I was a guest at Leica for 1 week)
Franco

[Franco Darioli]

I was searching for another camera on the Net and came across this old thread.

That Ducati camera Katharina’s brother is holding reminded me of a site I found some time ago :

http://www.novacon.com.br/odditycameras/35mmitalian.htm
lots of unusual Italian cameras there.
Now we make spaghetti.

BTW, there is one Compass (first camera in this thread) on EBay for only $3200.00 (starting bid…)
If I had spare money I would buy that over a car (or under a car) any day.

[Author]

Posts