Vintage Mirror Reflex Finder

[photax]

Hi !

Once i bought a 1914 Voigtländer Bergheil with a bag full of accessories at the flea market. The most interesting item was a so called "Rectoskop". No worries, this is not a medical device It turned out to be a reflex finder for plate cameras. It was folded several times and if you are not able to fold and unfold a roadmap, you will not manage to open this one. The "Rectoskop" was made in Austria ( i guess in the 1920-s ) and i don`t know if this was a easement for the photographer, because there is no way to fix the mirror. You always have to take care that this insecure attachment will not fall apart. This was probably no big achievement at that time...

MIK

[PeterW]

Hi MIK,

That's an interesting attachment. I've never come across it before.

However, in their London auction sale catalogue for May 2001 Christie's listed a KW (Kamera Werkstätten, Dresden) camera which they called a KW Rectoskop serial Number 56640. It looked a bit like a slightly updated Patent Etui folder but with a negative size of 4.5 by 6cm, probably plates as the body doesn't look thick enough to take 16 on 120 film. I have some 4 by 6cm plate holders. It had a rim-set Compur shutter and a Tessar lens serial number 1217582 which would date it 1930-1931.

The name Rectoskop may have been registered by KW some years earlier so I'm wondering if your finder was actually made by KW. It has a DRGM mark - Deutsches Reich Gebrauchsmuster, or German Reich Registered Design, and Austria wasn't part of the German Reich until the Anschluss, or annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 so I don't think it was made in Austria, unless whoever made it registered the design in Germany.

I can't find any mention of a KW Rectoskop camera in my admittedly old (1992-1993) copy of McKeown's Guide, and I've not seen a reference to one anywhere else other than the Christie's auction catalogue. It sounds a very interesting camera.

I wonder if anyone else can shed any light on either the camera or the reflex finder?

PeterW

[photax]

Hi Peter !

I have only seen two of this finders in my life. The other one (owned by a collectors colleague) is marked with "made in Austria". The "Name ges. gesch." means: This brand is protected by law ( Name gesetzlich geschützt). This is the austrian copyright, used in the ca.1910-1930s. I have many austrian Photographica of this period marked with that. "Pat.Ang.D.R.G.M." means the patent is pending for germany " Patent angemeldet Deutsches Reich Gebrauchs Muster". The D.R.G.M was the patent for the "man in the street" and would last 10 years. I have noticed that german cameras starting with ca. 1936 are all marked with the D.R.P. Maybe the D.R.G.M. became obsolete ( i don`t know exactly ).

I remembered my finder by viewing ebay-germany today, where the same item is offered for 50.- EUR ( the third i have seen ). I copied the following picture there ( i hope this is allowable ). I have also never heared of a K.W. Rectoskop camera ( as all collectors i own a Patent Etui.), nor read an article or advertisment in antique photo-books. The latest McKeown and other catalogues have also none recorded.

I hope my english is not as bad and funny, as the german posts in "my favorite german camera". If there is a fatal error, please be so kind and correct me. I think this forum is also a good opportunity to improve my 35 years old school-english.

lg MIK

[PeterW]

I hope my english is not as bad and funny, as the german posts in "my favorite german camera".

Your English is very good, way above my terrible halting German. I took German at school for two years in the 1940s, but not much of it stuck. I built on that a little in the 1960s and 1970s when, as an engineering technical journalist I visited Germany quite a lot to cover trade shows and visit manufacturers, mostly in the car and truck field.

Because I was working to tight deadlines I used my press pass to get into shows and exhibitions on the "setting up" days to get details of what was being shown from the stand fitters. This helped my spoken German a little, but as soon as the company press officers turned up they insisted on speaking in English because my German was so awful.

I'm told that my accent is quite good but tends towards a Berlin accent, like pronouncing nein as ny-een. This is probably because a good friend and fellow camera collector who lives near me is Berlin-born but has lived in England for over 30 years. He speaks excellent accent-less English as well as German, so we usually chat in English instead of German.

I haven't visited Germany since 1979. I'm now 81 and partly disabled so I doubt that I ever will again. I can read German with a struggle but I never get a chance to speak German. I keep forgetting my vocabulary, getting genders wrong, also the word order in sentences.

I've watched some good German films shown on UK television and enjoyed two serials: das Boot and Heimat, fortunately with sub-titles and not dubbed speech. But it isn't the same as conversing with somebody in German.

Never mind. Just another of those things I never quite got around to doing.

PeterW