Wanted: Good Guesses

[Reiska]

I have had this wreck for some years. Every now and then I have fiddled with it and waited for an enlightenment. I have even riffled through the pages of McKeown Price Guide....

Any knowledge or good guesses, what it is. I know, that it has been a camera but I would want to know more. Please, don't take this as a work order

The lens is Vicar 1/4,55? Ludvig Dresden, negative size 2,5cm x 4cm (1in x 1,6in), body seems to be aluminium alloy and other metal parts are nickel plated.

[mickeyobe]

Reijo,

It is not exactly the same but most closely resembles a "Megor" made by Hugo Meyer & Co., Görlitz, c1931.
The Megor is a Korelle 3x4cm rollfilm camera with a 50mm f3.5 lens.
Shutter speeds 1 to - 30, T & B Compur.
Price in 1995 $125. Kennedy's CAMERA Price Guide 1994-95.
Its open frame viewfinder seems a little more refined than yours. The lensboard is flat without the raised corners.

And then I found in Mckeown's 2001-2002 Pg. 460 .......
"Megor (Type 2) - c 1932. Strut- folding rollfilm camera for 3x4cm exposures. Not the same Megor as above! (Referring to the Hugo Meyer Megor which they call (Type 1).
This Megor was made by Merkel, Tharand and has four embossed 'corners' on the lensboard. Various Trioplan lenses in Vario, Ibsor, Pronto or Compur shutter.
$100 to $150.
There is no picture but this must be your camera.

Mickey

[Reiska]

Thank you Mickey!

You gave me a clue and a push to update my McKeow's. I also found that "Megor" by Hugo Meyer but the lack of those embossings didn't match.

Most obviously you are right. It is, that Megor Type 2 by Merkel, Tharand. Someone has been fiddling around with it and some parts are missing, some screws ain't original etc. Nice subject for restoration.
Thank you again

Reijo

[PeterW]

Hi, Reijo. Thanks for posting the pictures.

I would go along with Mickey that your camera is probably a Merkel, although I haven't actually seen one 'in the metal'. It wasn't a high quality camera but it is interesting to me, as are the company and the people who ran the company, as it comes in my main camera interest period, German cameras 1920s to the 1960s.

So, if no-one minds my rambling on for a bit about it I'll run briefly through what I know of the company (skip it and go on to the next subject if it doesn't interest you).

Camera-Werke Merkel was founded in Tharandt by Ferdinand Merkel in 1904 and made some very nice wooden plate cameras. It weathered the disastrous economic collapse of the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s, but by 1929 Ferdinand was struggling and filed for bancruptcy.

The company was taken over in 1930 by C. Richter and renamed Kamera Werke C. Richter. So who was this C. Richter who pulled the Merkel irons out of the fire? No-one seems to have heard of the name in connection with cameras before then.

C. Richter was a woman, Charlotte Richter, and there can't be many, if any, other examples of a camera factory in the 1930s being run by a woman. She had two business partners, her husband Fritz and a Friedrich Schmittchen, but I haven't been able to find out anything about Herr Schmittchen. Was he perhaps a 'sleeping' partner who provided the finance?

Through the 1930s Charlotte and Fritz seem to have been quite successful with a workforce of about 150 carrying on with cameras designed by Ferdinand Merkel, the one which you have, Reijo, and one which seems to have had better sales, a very basic twin-lens reflex the Reflecta. Merkel designed this within a few months of Franke and Heidecke coming out with the Rolleiflex in 1929, but he never seemed to get it into production. I have one of these. Again not a high quality camera, but at least it was a true TLR in that both lenses focused together, unlike the somewhat similar early model Voigtländer Brillant which was just a metal box camera with a big viewfinder.

During WWII camera production stopped and the factory switched to making armaments. In 1945, Tharandt found itself in the Eastern Zone controlled by Russia and, as they did with a number of other armaments factories, the Russians stripped out all the production facilities and left just the bare factory shell.

The Richter family seems to have had quite close ties with those of Waurich and Weber who ran Welta Kamera-Werke in Freital, and Welta took over production of the Reflecta but renamed it Reflekta (with a k). Nothing more seems to have been heard of the little Merkel, so it may have died in 1939.

The Richters moved to West Germany and set up another camera factory in Barntrup, Lipca-Lippischa Camerafabrik Richter and Fischer GmbH, in 1948. Little seems to be known about Fischer - maybe again he provided the finance? The business seems to have been run by Charlotte.

They turned out a quite successful line of medium to low-price TLRs: the Flexo, Flexora, Optimet and Rollop, the last one slightly better quality than the others, but about 1959 or 1960 the company seems to have stopped production. I wonder if the Richters, who by then were quite likely in or close to their 60s, decided to retire? Maybe they saw the writing on the wall for the German camera industry?

I know all this has nothing to do with Japanese SLRs which seem the main interest of most members, and sorry if I bored anyone but I, at any rate, find the often intertwined German camera industry over this period completely fascinating. What adds to my interest is that large numbers of German cameras of all qualities found their way to the UK, and there are quite a few still about. Far more, I suspect, than in the US - at least, compared to the sizes of the two countries.

Oh yes, Reijo, the Ludwig Victar lens. The Victar was made by Ludwig in Dresden for quite a few years as a budget-priced lens and was used by a number of camera makers, including indeed Ihagee who offered it for a time on a sort of 'budget introductory model' of both the pre-war 127 and Kine Exakta, though it’s not mentioned in my copy of McKeown’s, but few people seem to have bought it - or if they did most soon changed to a better lens. I’ve never actually seen an Exakta with a Victar. It was made in a number of different focal lengths and apertures, but the 50mm f/4.5 seems to have been the best of the bunch with a reputation of producing some quite crisp pictures if it was closed down a couple of stops. It seems to have died away about 1938-39 at around serial number 600,000+ to be replaced by the Meritar.

The Vario was, of course, a very popular budget shutter from Gauthier which was, together with Compur, by this time controlled by Zeiss Ikon. You may find, Reijo, if you look at it closely, that the name plate is chromium plated rather than nickel. Gauthier seems to have changed from nickel to chromium plating earlier than many camera makers.

PeterW

[Reiska]

Thanks a lot for boring me Peter!

I was sure, that you will be interested in this camera. I also guessed, that the result will be a thorough and excellent short story . Photogenically expressed it's a keeper.

You are guite a chaps, Mickey and Peter!

Reijo

[mickeyobe]

Peter,

I thank you too.
Reijo's "wreck" certainly has an interesting pedigree.

Mickey