PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 23, 2008 19:15:18 GMT -5
Reijo wrote: Very much OT but I had to mention the most popular construction machines in the UK, made by the remarkable JCB company. Back in 1945, Joseph Cyril Bamford was a 28 year old man with 50 shillings (five bucks), and a vision. That vision was a British engineering industry as pre-eminent in the world as it was in the 19th century when British factories, driven by steam power, built locomotives, steam engines, machine tools, mining equipment, ships, textile and other factory machines ... you name it ... for the world. He also had the entrepreneurial spirit of those 19th century engineers who helped to put the Great into Great Britain. He rented a lock-up garage in Uttoxeter in the industrial Midlands and spent his five bucks on a welder. His first product was a trailer which he built from war-surplus material and sold for £90. Today, JCB has a turnover of several hundred million pounds, has won seven Queen's Awards to industry, has 10 UK plants and manufacturing plants in US, Brazil, Germany, India and China. In 1984, thirty nine years after it was founded, JCB took 17% of the world market in construction and agricultural machinery. Quite a step up from a rented lock-up and a five-buck welder! Joseph Bamford died in 1981 at the age of 84, and the company chairman since 1976 has been Joseph's son Anthony, now Sir Anthony - in 1990 he was knighted for services to industry. JCB is very socially aware, and sends machines to help out after natural disasters all over ther world. The latest venture towards realising Joseph Bamford's vision is a plan to set up an Engineering Academy to train young people between 14 and 19 wanting to start a career in engineering, not just with JCB but with other British engineering companies. It will be run in conjunction with the County Council, the Department of Education and the leading engineering universities. Anyone who's interested can read about it on www.jcb.co.uk/jcbacademy/pressreleases/PlansUnveiledForJCB.pdfTo promote British engineering, JCB took its standard four-cylinder diesel engine, developed it and put it into a world-record breaking car which in August 2006 took three world records at Bonneville to become the world's fastest diesel powered car at 350.092 mph. Sorry to rave on so OT, but for me, JCB is a British engineering company to be proud of. Since 1975, UK manufacturing employment has fallen from 7.7 million to under four million. In the same time, JCB’s workforce has doubled. The company may well see Joe Bamford's vision realised. You can't develop Third-World countries, build roads, build railways, build factories, build ships and aircraft, dig quarries or manufacture goods with plastics and electronics alone. You also need good old-fashioned metal mechanically engineered machinery. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 23, 2008 17:52:48 GMT -5
Wonderful landscapes, Tommy, just the right sort of scenery on the way to work to set you up in a good mood for the day.
When I used to drive the sixty-odd miles to work in central London my scenery was impatient frustrated drivers on motorways, then fifteen miles of London suburbs trying to find new 'back doubles' to avoid the queues on the main roads. I'd arrive frazzled, and would have given a lot to drive to work through scenery like that.
Today my son John has to drive to work only to the outskirts of London, but says that after the traffic congestion he still needs a couple of coffees after he arrives before he feels human again and sets out to fix problems in computers and networks for companies in the centre of London.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 23, 2008 16:28:08 GMT -5
Retinas are climbing in price!
Maybe we're praising folding Retinas too much, or I'm waving the flag for August Nagel too much. Whatever the reason, folding Retinas described on ebay UK as being in good working order with clean lenses have been climbing in price over the past six months.
Just over a year ago you could pick up quite nice examples for around £15 to £20 ($30 to $40), and non-working or with sticking shutters for around £8 to £10 ($16 to $20). All including postage. At camera fairs you could take £5 to £8 off those prices.
I've been keeping an eye on folding Retinas on ebay because I've collected them for about a couple of years. I've got five at the moment, and it looks as if it might stay at that number for a time. Here are the results for the past two months for those described as in very good order. Prices include UK postage.
Model IIc, £54.00 Model IIIC, £183.50 Model II, £57.00 Model I Type 117, the first model Retina in 1934, £91.45. This one had just had an overhaul and new bellows, and looked beautiful!
Double these prices, near enough, for USD, and add another £10 approx for postage to the US.
All the prices jumped about 200% - 300% in last minutes of the auctions.
I was really surprised by the price realised by the Type 117. Yes, it was the first model and therefore a landmark, but there were 60,000 of them made in two years. I haven't got one unfortunately because I haven't yet found one at my cheapskate price ... but I will, one day!
But about 18 months ago I picked up at a camera fair a model 118, the second model and only very slightly different, for £5.00. OK, the shutter was jammed and the leather was filthy but both of those were easily fixed.
The Type 118 is one of the more rare Retinas. There were only 9,144 Type 118 made in just over 12 months before the Type 119 (black top plate) appeared and sold 39,000 in about 18 months even though Type 126, very similar but with a chromium plated top plate, was on sale at the same time and also sold about 39,000.
I haven't seen a Type 118 in any condition offered for sale for a long time.
These production figures may be small fry compared with 70 million Kodak 126 Instamatics made from 1963 onwards, but they were the mass production outpourings from three major Kodak factories in the US, Canada and UK. The folding Retinas were hand assembled in one smallish factory in Germany.
All the production figures come from Brian Coe's excellent book Kodak, the First 100 Years. Brian ought to have the figures right because when he wrote the book he was curator of the Kodak Museum at Kodak's Harrow, UK, factory. That fine collection is now in The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television at Bradford, about three hours by train north of London. It's part of the National Science Museum.
I haven't been there, but I want to go one day. From what I've heard it has grown in size over the past few years, and you need at least one whole day. The exhibits are on four floors and include several 'hands-on' displays using replicas of some very early wooden cameras, and several genuine old television and studio film cameras. I'm also told there's a very good camera bookshop, so I shall take my piggy bank. I wonder if photography is allowed, or if you have the buy the museum's photos of the exhibits?
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 22, 2008 18:54:51 GMT -5
Alex, There were two different models of Retina II, Type 011 and Type 014, and two different models of Retina IIa, Type 150 and Type 016. As far as I know there was only one model of the IIc, Type 020, and one of the IIC, Type 029. I think the difference in price between the IIa Type 016 (the one you have) and the IIc and IIC is in the quantities made and hence still available. All three were post-war cameras but more than 250,000 IIa Type 016 were made compared with 136,000 IIc and 18,700 IIC. I have the earlier, knob-wind IIa Type 150, which was made only during 1939 after which the war stopped production. It's the most rare of the lot, with only 5,107 made. I was fortunate in finding mine at the right price (read very cheaply) because the seller, a camera fair part-time dealer, didn't realise there was a pre-war and a post-war IIa . The pre-war ones usually fetch twice as much as the post-war ones. With regard to the difference in quality between German Kodaks and US Kodaks it's case of a different philosophy. The German Kodaks were designed by Dr. August Nagel (ex Zeiss Ikon, ex Contessa Nettel) who left Zeiss Ikon in 1929 to found his own company again. Kodak was looking for a base on the European mainland to produce quality cameras leaving its factories in the US, Canada and the UK to cater for the mass snapshot market. They bought the Nagel company in 1932 leaving August Nagel as technical director, and virtual head of the company. All German Kodaks were made in the Kodak August Nagel works in Stuttgart. August Nagel looked upon cameras more as scientific instruments than picture-making machines for snapshotters. He had designed and patented the 'throwaway' 35mm cassette to go with the Retina which he had planned in some detail before Kodak bought his company. The Retina and the new 35mm cassette put quality 35mm photography in the hands of many more people than just the well-off who could afford a Leica or Contax. August's brother Hugo was much more inclined to be a production engineering designer, more interested in reliability at a cheap price than high quality at a higher price. It's possible he had some suggestions to make to his brother about production of the 35mm cassette? He moved to Kodak's UK factory in 1932 and designed a whole string of very reliable and popular folding and box cameras for snapshotters, the price being kept down by mass production techniques rather than hand assembling. August Nagel did, at Kodak's request, design and produce a couple of Bownie box cameras for the German and UK markets but he couldn't bring himself to use wood and cardboard. His were all metal. Once the UK factory's mass production was on stream, the metal box cameras were taken over, with modifications, by Hugo and made in the UK. August Nagel died in 1943 but his design influence was carried on in the later folding Retinas (and folding Retinettes). Whether or not he would have approved of the later solid-bodied Retinas and Retinettes no-one will ever know. He was also, of course, unable to influence the design of the Retina Reflexes though his legacy of quality still lived on. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 20, 2008 17:13:16 GMT -5
Alex,
As Gene says, you obviously love older technology from the days when things were held together with screws and nuts and bolts instead of being machine-soldered circuit boards inside a clipped-together plastic case.
I'm not decrying modern technology. Today's electronic goods do wonderful things, unheard of a few short decades ago. And these wonders are available to us at really very low prices considering what they do.
But you can't see millions of electrons poping in and out of solid state little black boxes. They do wonderful things, but they're terribly boring to watch working.
The difference is what I feel attracts folk to collect older things and restore them. Usually you can figure out how they work by looking at the moving parts. You can see things happening. They work with satisfying clicks and buzzes and you can take them apart to clean and restore them.
I'd be interested to hear what sort of workshop, and equipment, you've got. There are some wonderful miniature 'machine shop' tools in model engineering shops these days, powered by small electric motors, and really not all that expensive.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 19, 2008 17:03:06 GMT -5
Hah, Michael, Up here (or down there maybe to you) we've got the spring and summer with nice warm photo weather to look forward to - though it wasn't all that springlike in the south east UK today with traces of hail in the wind! I hope summer 2008 will be longer and finer than last year here. I'm really looking forward to getting out and about with a camera. Last year summer was come and gone almost before the weather even got very summery. Oh well, hope springs infernal in the human beast. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 19, 2008 11:09:29 GMT -5
Hi Alex,
Nice 'period' group of the typewriter, torch, phone and camera.
Re your pictures: They're not just getting better, they've got. Nice overall lighting, good dof when needed, good closeups and good macros. Nicely done!
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 18, 2008 15:17:28 GMT -5
Whoever thought up the idea for that cover picture obviously doesn't care, or has forgotten, that the men and women who died in World War II died in order that he/she would have the freedom to publish insensitive pictures like this.
Richard Stengel, Time's Managing Editor is quoted as saying: "So I thought, you know what, if we really feel strongly about something let's just say so."
Indeed yes, Richard. But just say so. You got your publicity, but I feel that cover may prove to be a serious error of judgement.
Feeling strongly is a weak excuse for irresponsibly riding roughshod over the feelings and sensibilities of many of your readers.
Perhaps I also made an error of judgement. I used to think, as I'm sure did thousands of others, that Time was a responsible magazine.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 18, 2008 14:33:51 GMT -5
Gene, I'm praying, as I'm sure are all of us, for a successful op and convalescence. Our thoughts are with you and Marion. Best of luck, buddy, and don't go overdoing it when you come out of hospital. Take it nice and easy and use a lightweight P&S, not a heavy tank SLR, for a time.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 18, 2008 14:24:27 GMT -5
Michael,
You did more than just try to salvage it, you succeeded. With the light coming in at the edges, and the delicate shade of sepia toning, with its slightly faded effect, it could well be a vintage - veteran even - print faded by exposue to too much sunlight over the years.
Well done!
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 18, 2008 14:03:07 GMT -5
Hi Andrew,
I think Merkel was another casualty of the general political and economic situation in Germany in the 1920s coupled with two major depressions.
I've no intention here of going into depth about German political and economic history of the 1920s, about which many books have been written but, VERY briefly:
The Weimar republic formed at the end of World War I was, at best, an uneasy political coalition and in 1922 it lost control of the economy. Hyperinflation on a scale hitherto unknown hit Germany. For example, in 1919 the rate of exchange of the Mark against the US Dollar was 8.9 to 1. By mid 1921 it was 76.7 to 1, by January 1922 191.8 to 1 and in November 1923 reached the meaningless ratio of 4.2 trillion to 1!! Importing became impossible. German money was virtually worthless. Unemployment increased alarmingly.
At the end of 1923 the German government managed to regain reasonable control of the economy helped by short term loans to German industry by German banks, via loans from US bankers. Even so, many German firms went under.
Those that survived were again hit very hard in 1929 when, because of the Wall Stret crash, US bankers recalled the loans to meet debts and losses at home. German banks were also forced to recall loans. Some camera firms managed to struggle on, but Merkel may well have been one of the casualties. Product quality wasn't the major factor in staying afloat. Capital reserves and assetts counted for more. This time unemployment also got out of control with nearly a third of the workforce unable to find a job.
Had it not been for the financial and economic strength and foresight of the Zeiss Stiftung (Zeiss Foundation) in forming Zeiss Ikon in 1926 other great names in the German camera industry might well have followed.
But that's another story. As are the problems of the East German camera industry after World War II first with assets stripped by Russia in the form of reparations followed by the formation and, as it transpired, mismanagement of the VEBs (VEB = Volkseigener Betrieb, or public enterprise - in other words State controlled industry) in East Germany after World War II, and the disastrous handling of privatisation by the Treuhandanstalt, or Treuhand agency, appointed by the East German government just before German reunification in 1990.
As they say, it's all a loooong story!
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 18, 2008 8:54:13 GMT -5
Thanks, Bob. Very interesting shots. Hardly any flare from the lights in the picture. Was the light coming through the window the only lighting? They look like car headlights?
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 17, 2008 15:44:22 GMT -5
Hi Alex, I've had a Contaflex IV for about 18 years, sightly older than yours, with a knob wind, and not quite so pristine as yours looks. I had a lever wind Super but the shutter slow speeds started dragging and I did a swap with another collector for a Retina IIa with f/2 Xenon lens that needed the rangefinder realigning vertically. I reckon it took him longer to get inside and CLA the Contaflex shutter than it did for me to fix the Retina's rangefinder. I seldom use my Contaflex now although it's a very nice smooth camera to use, and beautifully made. I like the feel of the compact weight of it. I haven't got any other Pro-Tessar front elements, and as they're now fetching more than a lot of very decent focal plane shuttered SLR lenses I can't really see myself sporting out on any - unless of course one falls into my lap for a pittance. The only gripe I had with using my Contaflex was the EV linked speed and aperture shutter. Yes, you can swap around speeds and apertures and still keep the same exposure value which is fine for general shots on a day out, but when I encountered varying light conditions and backlighting the little serrated catch for altering the setting was, I found, too sharp and too fiddling with cold fingers. Same applies to all EV leaf shutters. I prefer the speed and aperture rings to be independent on a leaf shutter. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 16, 2008 17:11:14 GMT -5
Hi, Weltur. Welcome to the group, and thanks for the info on folding Weltas. BTW, most of us are on first name terms here.
I have very little more information on Charlotte Richter. As you say, a lady heading a camera company before the war must be pretty rare, especially in the eastern part of Germany which had a reputation for being very male-dominated.
All I have is that Charlotte and her husband Fritz bought Camera-Werke Merkel in Tharandt in 1932 when the owner Ferdinand Merkel went bankrupt. There was a third partner, Friedrich Schmittchen, but no-one seems to know anything about him. Maybe he was a sleeping partner who provided some of the finance.
They renamed the company Kamera-Werk C. Richter and started production with a fairly basic and cheap TLR called the Reflecta which Merkel had designed but never put into production.
After the war, when most of the factory's machinery was taken by the Russians, the Richters moved to Barntrup in West Germany in 1946 and founded another camera company Lipca-Lippische Camerafabrik Richter & Fischer. Again I have no idea what part Fischer had - possibly similar to that of Schmittchen before the war.
Back in Tharandt the company was renamed Reflecta-Kamera-Werke Tharandt and carried on with the Reflecta TLR but now spelled the name Reflekta with a k. In 1948 the company name was changed to Kamera-Werk Tharandt, and in 1950 it was nationalised as part of VEB Welta-Kamera-Werke. That's about all my notes on Charlotte Richter tell me, though I might possibly have more info somewhere on Welta and the VEB/VEB Kombinat set-up in the 1950s.
European - mainly German - cameras and camera history up to about 1955 or so is my main photographic collecting interest, and for me the people that founded the factories and those who designed the cameras are almost as fascinating as the cameras themselves.
Most of my information comes from reading books and magazines, and talking with many friends over the past 20 or so years who are fellow collectors in the UK, and more lately with friends in various parts of the world via the internet, emails and generally browsing. It is nearly all on handwritten notes in notebooks - typed on a computer and printed out when I get the chance - and filed, well loosely collected - in binders and folders. Not very well organised I'm afraid but I usually manage to find what I'm looking for eventually.
Unfortunately I have been very lax in the past and didn't note the sources of much of my information particularly when it came from late night/early morning natters with camera collecting friends or conversations at camera fairs and local area meetings of the Photographic Collector's Club of Great Britain. Sometimes I didn't write up my notes for several days, so memory may have been a little forgetful at times. I guess I just don't have the museum curator type of tidy-filing mind.
At many of these chats and general natterings I have been fortunate to be able to handle many cameras I have never owned, nor indeed am likely to own. My impressions of the quality of those cameras is what I remember from handling them.
At each level of build quality, from mass produced snapshot cameras to the top, judging between two makes is largely subjective unless you have had them apart for repair or refurbishing and can judge the internals.
I don't own any pre-war Weltas, but as I remember handling them the build quality and general feel was very good but not, at least in my opinion, quite as high as the early Retinas. The automatic return to infinity was a nice feature, but I have heard a couple of collectors say that it sometimes gave trouble when it was older and slightly worn, or could be bent by careless handling.
Some of the later post-war Retinas went sadly downhill in build quality as, indeed did most of the post-war Weltas. There really wasn't a lot of excuse for the last few years of the Retinas, but in the case of the Weltas the post-war fall off in quality was, I feel, largely due to the shortage of skilled labour in East Germany together with the shortage of top quality materials and inefficient State management.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 15, 2008 15:19:18 GMT -5
Sid,
Don't apologise. I agree entirely. Latin names for plants are international, and can be added to or extended when new varieties are found. I'm just very rusty on them, and even more rusty on identification.
I once knew a very keen gardener who was born and bred in Walworth and had a south London accent you could slice up with a knife, full of shortened forms of rhyming slang. Even I had to concentrate to understand him at times. He was a frequent visitor to Kew Gardens and I'm sure the people there must have thought his accent was Russian or something. But he could quote the Latin name of any flower in his garden, and they understood it immediately.
He ran a market stall selling fruit and vegetables, and sometimes shouted out the Latin names of his wares just for fun - "Got some nice Brassica oleracea 'ere. Fresh s'mornin'. Wassat me ol' China? An' same ter you, wi' brass knobs on! I'll shove a Solanum lycopersicum dahn yer norf in a minit!."
Quoting local names internationally would be quite hopeless. How, for example, would you translate 'Old Maid's Frillies' into Swedish? I came across that name used in Gloucestershire for a variety of quite large white daisy with frilly edges to the petals. Don't ask me what the Latin name for the variety is, Leucanthemum something possibly.
PeterW
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