Tarons

[Just Plain Curt]

After the clarification attempt at the Contina in our earlier posts, I thought we might do some of the other much confused brands as well as their store branded clones. Here's a few Tarons and such:


The Rival, a rebadged Taron Marquis for export sale.


The Taron Marquis


The Boots Amica Auto EE 1.8 a rebadged Taron Auto EE
I also have the Amica Eyelux, Cavalier EE Auto 35, and Hanimex EE Auto 35, all rebadged Taron Auto EE. Store branded cameras can be confusing but fascinating collecting. Everything from Wards AM 550 and 450 rebadged Konica Auto S2 and Auto S, to K mart and Sears rebadged Canons, Olympus, Pentax, Prakticas to Bell & Howell and Vivitar etc. In the U.K. I guess it would be Boots and Peerless? Zenits rebadged as Kalimars, Cosmorex etc. Just fun stuff to amass/collect and sometimes the detective work is as interesting as the camera itself.

[PeterW]

Hi Curt,

Boots had quite a few cameras rebadged as own-brand, but all lower-middle market, nothing of any real quality. I don't remember seeing Peerless anywhere.

Dixons used Prinzn for years as their own-brand, and still do though the only cameras I've seen there for a long time are small P&S digitals.

Going back to the 1930s and early post war years there were quite a few own-brands about. A few I can bring to mind are:
Wallace Heaton used Zodel, though I can't imagine why.
Westminster Photographic Exchange used Westex, fairly obvious.
City Sale and Exchange used Salex, also fairly obvious.
Vauxhall Cameras used, naturally enough, Vauxhall.
Fotet Camera Company used Fotet.
Sheffield Camera Co used Norfolk, from their address in Norfolk Row.

There were probably a few more, but I don't recall them offhand.

Quite a time ago now I picked up a Prinz Mastermatic which I haven't been able to identify. It's a fixed-lens RF with a selenium meter, which still works, built in. There are only three settings, Bulb, daylight and Flash, and meter switches on only on the daylight setting. The ragefinder spot is reasonably clear, and the finder has a brightframe with parallax markings.

You focus, choose an aperture, line up the needle and pointer in the meter, and press the button. As far as I can tell there's only one speed, but I can't be sure because the shutter blades take about 3 sec to crawl across the lens. Another one of those round tuit jobs.

The lens is an Isco Isconar 2.8/45, and the shutter is a Prontormat, so I presume it came from Germany. Isco was a subsidiary of Schneider, and the Isconar seems to be a triplet judging from the reflections.

It's not a top quality camera, but seems reasonably well made, comparable with most German consumer-aimed fixed lens RFs of the 1950s/60s.

Anyone got any clues about who made it? Here's a quick digipic.



(I should have dusted it before I took the pic, sorry)

PeterW

[doubs43]

Peter, it sure has a Voigtlander look about it but I really have no clue.

Walker

[Just Plain Curt]

Hi Peter, I'd say this is a King camera, one of the Regula series. Another great source to check would be Flickr's Camerapedia and search the images of the Franka group. A friend of mine named Jens Leuthold has plenty of photos of various Frankas that also look like this one.

[mickeyobe]

Peter,

Your Taron looks very much like a Balda Automatic I or II.

According to McKeown's ( pages 110 & 111 ) they are similar to the Narita or Regula L automatic.

Mickey

[Just Plain Curt]

Hi Mickey,
While the Baldas, King Regulas and Frankas share many features (some are even made for each other) this isn't a Balda for 4 reasons: 1. Baldas (at least the 5 I have) use a Baldanar (not sure if they use Isco lenses) 2. The flash sync. on the front of the Balda 3. Baldas have strap lugs and 4. The front plate shape on Baldas (the area where the lens attaches) is different on Baldas. They do use the same shape top plate but with a different stamped cold shoe.


The King Regulas use the same style top plate, same meter, same Isconar lenses and same shutter release as well as the same cold shoe stamped in the body plus they have no strap lugs.




This still reeks of Frankas to me as the Regulas and Franka models are almost identical but I can't find a Regula with the same shutter release and top plate above the meter (at least in the 10 Kings that I have). Some have the same top plate, some the same release button.





If I sound a bit passionate on this it's because Jens and myself have had a running debate on Regulas/Frankas for several weeks now, LOL.

[mickeyobe]

Curt,

Good morning.

Check pages 110 & 111 in the latest McKeown's. The cameras pictured there appear to be identical to Peter's Taron unlike the cameras you have posted here.

Mickey

[paulatukcamera]

I have just found the camera I own which is identical in every respect - a Haponette Automatic and in an earlier thread when Peter asked the same question:
cameracollector.proboards30.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=1930s&thread=1134132604&page=1
I came down on it being a Regula!

McKeowans Page 817 gives it as a Regulette derivation - see Wesemuller Automatic/Woltje Automatic. Evidentally they also made one called a Montanus Rocca LK & SLK!

Paul

[PeterW]

Curt, Paul and others,

It’s quite interesting to follow the changing fashions in German fixed lens cameras of the 1950s and 1960s, like the way they all suddenly came out with all-enveloping top plates with provisions for small selenium meters, brightline viewfinders and rangefinders, fitted to different models according to price. Then they all seemed to move away from body-mounted shutter releases and use front plates which carried both the shutter and lens assembly complete with either a push button or sliding button shutter release.

The reason is quite simple, it wasn’t one of slavishly following changes in fashion, it was because all these parts were made by outside component suppliers. We’ve become so used to all except the largest camera makers using outside suppliers for lenses and shutters we forget how many other parts were out-sourced.

The front plates complete with shutter and release were supplied by either Gauthier (Compur) or Prontor, which became the same company when Zeiss bought control of both. The pressings for the top and bottom plates, and for these front-mounted shutter assemblies, were supplied by one of a number of light pressings companies that grew up to support the camera industry. Very similar in fact to the large number of component suppliers that serve the automobile industry.

Once the presses are installed in a factory it isn’t overly expensive to produce different dies to make the pressings or stampings to the customer’s design, particularly using thin gauge soft metals like brass or light alloy which are much kinder on the dies than pressing even mild steel. Also, it wasn’t difficult for the designers in these companies to produce ‘pups’ of the dies with slightly different shape or slightly different dimensions provided the customer was willing to pay for the modification. On an order of 50,000 or 60,000 the cost of these modifications was pennies per unit.

Most of the selenium cells, meter galvanometers, viewfinder lenses, PC flash sockets and other bits came from component companies as did all the screws and other fasteners including most of the strap lugs either with a threaded shank to serve as screws to secure the top plate or with a plain shank so they could be riveted to the top plate before this was chromium plated.

I have read that when Bernhard Dangelmaier founded his Dacora factory in 1946 he was short on capital but very rich in determination. With a very small staff, and lacking the money to install much in the way of machine tools, he had the bodies diecast and the top and bottom plates pressed by local firms. He and one of his managers used to travel to suppliers once a month to collect all sorts of other bits from their standard catalogues, even the gears for the wind-on, the quantities depending on orders for his cameras. Where he succeeded was in the personal supervision of the finishing and assembly of his cameras which, while they were no Zeiss Ikons or Leicas, were inexpensive and gained a reputation for reliability which brought orders from Lumiere in France, Ferrania in Italy and Ilford in England for large quantities of own-badge cameras. He even sent technicians to these companies to check every single camera before it went out to dealers. This brought the capital to expand his factory and install more machinery.

The rebirth of the west German camera industry in the twenty years following the war is a fascinating one. All part of the ‘German Economic Miracle’ of the 50s and 60s. Sadly, it collapsed almost as quickly in the face of the Japanese camera steamroller, and most small camera firms either closed or turned to other branches of light engineering. Even the large ones eventually succumbed when they seemed to lose their way.

For an insight into one company, Gebruder Wirgin (Edixa), have a look at Klaus-Ekhard Reiss’ website homed.inet.tele.dk/riess/gewir.html
He also has another fascinating website at homed.inet.tele.dk/riess/ which perhaps you ought to look at first and click on the Zeiss Ikon button to get an idea of his background.

Sorry this is rather long.

PeterW

[kiev4a]

I remember looking through my "wish book"--the ads in a photo magazine, when I was a youngster and thinking at that time the Taron was about the nicest-looking camera around. Never owned or even held one, however.

[PeterW]

Paul,

I have just found the camera I own which is identical in every respect - a Haponette Automatic and in an earlier thread when Peter asked the same question: I came down on it being a Regula!

You're quite right, Paul. I wasn't able to find it before, but I just chased Happonette and discovered it's an own-brand of the camera dealer Porst in Germany. What's more, on a page of the Porst website I hadn't seen before it gives an alphabetical list of all the Porst house names - and the companies that made the cameras. All three Happonettes listed were made by King AG (Regula) between 1963 and 1965.

So that's finally got it settled. Thanks, Paul, Curt and Mickey for taking time to help. All I've got to do now is find time to CLA the shutter - it's been sitting waiting for three years!

BTW, I discovered that Dixons also had a Mastermatic III and a Mastermatic V - both rebadged Halinas. Put King AG, W. Haking and Quality in the same sentence, and guess which is the odd one out!

BTW2. King AG has also got quite an interesting history ... but I'll let someone else chase that. I don't want to hog all the fun!

PeterW

[Just Plain Curt]

Thanks for solving this Mickey. I still use my 97/98 McKeown's and it's not in there. After faithfully buying 4 of them over the years I gave up when they became overpriced, LOL.
Hi Paul,
I've seen the Woltje Automatic in photos. I actually have both the Montanus Rocca LK and Rocca SLK. Looked at them last night too.
That's what I find so interesting in collecting fixed lens rangefinders, especially non-japanese versions, if you throw Welta, Wirgin, Rocca and a couple others like Lord in the mix it takes hours of research and usually a team of four or five to come to any kind of solution. Fascinating the variety. Thanks to everyone for finally establishing the identity of this camera, now....I've gotta add one to my horde.

[paulatukcamera]

Curt

Ah Montanuses!

I fear you may have two imposters there - the LK certainly!

The genuine Montanus Rocca LK is this one:



With a bit more dedication, I could be the leading world expert on Roccas! Trouble is nobody - save yourself and Sylvain Hasgaard www.collection-appareils.fr/appareils/html/rocca.php nobody has ever mentioned them! In fact, I would be very grateful if you could put up photos of your two "imitation" Roccas to complete the article I wrote about them in Camerapedia last year:
www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Rocca_35

Fact - nobody else has come along in that time to alter it!

However - keep this quiet - my latest researches show that a genuine Montanus Rocca SLK may have also existed. If this is true then both your Roccas will, I am afraid, be exposed as imposters! Duel with pistols at dawn stuff!




If my theory is correct (I have the evidence somewhere in an advert when they were being remaindered) the Roccamatic was rebadged as a Rocca SLK and yours merely stole the badge!

Paul

"See a brighter world - buy a GENUINE Montanus Rocca - the only camera with a rose-tinted viewfinder"

[John Parry]

Showing my ignorance here folks

Did Montanus bear any relation to Del Monta? I've a rather nice looking Del Monta TLR sat on the shelf, which I'd put around the same age as the Yashica D.

Regards - John

[Just Plain Curt]

Hi Paul,
I love a challenge so ok here goes:



Montanus Rocca SLK (The original rewind knob rolled off last season and was sitting on the brink of Kakabeka Falls last I looked so I replaced it)



Montanus Rocca LK



Montanus Montana just to complete the Montanus theme.