The estate sale ad read, "cameras and darkroom equipmen

[ravnostic]

So I was glancing at the craigslist ads during my last break when I came across this one:

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/cph/gms/1797756507.html

Fridays are the bomb, I’m learning, for estate sales. Was there bright and early. Got some toys. Spent $110, but oh, what toys! I’m sure I got more than I paid for.

Only problem is…what the hell did I get? I’ll research it, but I know some of you guys will wish you wert there. I won’t be keeping it all, so let me know if you’ve an interest and we’ll figure out what a reasonable price is and I’ll sell it for half, plus shipping.

The above is a magic lantern projector (or so the ebay tells me). Side panel reads ‘Manufactured by THE HENDERSON-AMES CO KALAMAZOO, MICH”

The little brass dial up front reads in it’s interior “A.DARLOT OPTICIEN PARIS”. The ebay tells me it’s a Petzval lens; my own ruler tells me at 44mm diameter and 80mm focal length, it’s a f/2.

The lens cap is original leather with velvet interior, and the brass dial mechanism works well.

Behind the accordian thingy there’s a 4.5 inch lens set as well, and the whole piece can articulate about 15 inches from front lens to back (the ebay tells me it’s about 11 inches for correct focal length). There is a block wood piece that I guess sets in the backside and has a nifty old-school on-off switch (shown in ‘on’ position). The cord is frayed; I dare not plug it in.

I paid $45, the lens alone has sold for $200 to $250 on the ebay (but they were all shiny; while mine works well, it’s got corrosion a bit–lenses are good, though.) I don’t have a way to marry this to my dslr, but after cleaning the lenses inside and out, I just held it up to my camera and took a shot:

I think you call the edge fadeout viginetting? Or something close? Anyway, I like the effect. The other lens has a 50mm focal length, but is 100mm wide, so it’s a f/.5; how that works out in tandem, I’m not sure. Clues?

Not that I know what I bought, or at least some of it. What’s the above? It was part of ‘camera pieces, 3 @ $2 (2 of the three). The plate fits perfectly over the cylinder, though there’s no sort of mounting brackets. On the plate is a Taylor Tayon lens, 1:3.5, F=75mm No. 120327, with shutter adjustments from f/3.5 to f/16. On the tube side (maybe 6″ long x4″ round) is another lens; This one has f/4.5 to 32, and reads along the rim, “(something worn away)LEX OPTICAL CO. ROCHESTER, N.Y. PARAGON ANASTIGMAT F: 4.5 6 1/2 INCH NO. 8163” (could be 53, also worn).

Regardless, very cool; I’m sure I’ll find something online if none of you know.

The above is a timer, a little over 8 inches in diameter, by Wittnauer. Glass front. Pull the button on the bottom and it resets (not quite to 0 as you can see), flip the lever on the right and it starts the clock. The place was LOADED with development materials, so I imagine this was for development timing. It’s a keeper–me likes it way bunch. The top has a painted stylized ‘logo’, perhaps, that says ‘AN’ and below, ‘P158’ in a circle with the A and N rounded to fit. The last of ‘camera pieces’, so $2. Can be wall mounted.

Above, a more modern timer, this seems related to flash and/or exposure. Reads “Time-o-lite” switch to left reads ‘Time’ above and ‘Focus’ below, to the right push button reads (duh) ‘Push’. Larger arm turns to some given seconds; smaller red arm counts down to 0, then back to the pointer on the large arm, stopping there. I risked plugging it in, works great. $2, also. Backside reads “INDUSTRIAL TIMER CORPORATION, NEWARK, N.J. U.S.A. MODEL P-49 1500 WATTS 105-135 VOLTS 60 CYCLES A.C.” on a nice metal plaque. Blue stamp tells me “Insp. 1” approves. Can be wall mounted.

The cameras:

I bought 3, $10 each. Have no idea if they work; lenses are certainly soiled on the exterior, but cleanable at least (I swabbed one down with isoprop and q-tips.)

The above is an Argus C-3, circa 1940 (within that year, the interweb says) Leather case is missing it’s flip-top portion, and threading has lost integrity. Argus, I’ve learned, made 35mm the de facto standard, and is sorely underappreciated. Serial number is 0324216. Best I can tell, it works very well; better, infact (at least from an exposure point of view) than the below (but I’ll have to take a role of film in each to know for sure.)

This one is nearly identical; but is circa 1948, give or take a year. Denotes A.S.A (10 to 200), and has an argus (lowercase) label, “Ann Arbor Michigan, US Patent 2,298,107 US Patent 2,298,787 Part no 14226” It’s serial number is 349210. Whereas on the older (?) one, the center black lens ring unscrewed by hand, the newer (?) one would require a tool.

Then there’s the Kodak. Why didn’t I listen to you’ts about Kodaks? Oh, well, it was $10, too.

This is a Flash Bantam, it tells me (there’s no flash that I have, though). Focus is marked from 2.5-inf, but dial goes down far below 2.5. F/4.5 through 16, and another dial for ‘T’, ‘B’, and 25-200 (ASA? ms exposure? Dunno). Interior of lenspiece says ‘Kodak Anastar f/4.5 48mm. Camera collapses down, viewfinder pops up as shown. There’s a button on back to let you rewind the spool of film (which, the inside tells me, is Kodak 828 film; smaller spool in diam. than 35 mm), though for the life of me I’m unsure how you advance the frame, unless you just guestimate it manually. There’s some sort of dark green window on the backside.

I read that you can use 35mm film for this, if you do some winding yourself, but I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle that as I don’t have a ay to put the film back in the spool for walgreens to develop (I supppose I could find a real photographer to do the developing, but $$…)

Like I said, it was only 10 bucks. *phew*

Elsewise, I got the following:

..this lovely set of pyrex beakers and 60 deg. funnels (actually he had more, but I bought the smaller collection, which for my purposes is comprised of 8-50ml shot glasses, 5-250 ml milk glasses (lactose intolerant; gotta limit my intake), and a 500 ml beer mug.) And they came in a vintage Pyrex cardboard box, complete with mice droppings! (Yay! err–Boo!)

Anyway, for $110, I got a lot of cool stuff. No?

[sleeping]

I think that thing at the top is a projector – early “Magic lantern” slides were on 3″ or so glass plates rather than film. It might be missing the slide holder though?

The Argus cameras are C3s – that was one of the first really popular mass market 35mm cameras in the US. They actually have interchangeable lenses, there’s a 35mm and 100mm available as well as the 50.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_C3

[sleeping]

>>>>though for the life of me I’m unsure how you advance the frame, unless you just guestimate it manually. There’s some sort of dark green window on the backside.

That window is how you advance the film – 828 was ~35mm sized rollfilm with backing paper on a spool (like 120). The frame numbers were printed on the backing paper and visible through the window.

[ravnostic]

Sleeping; from what I’m gathering, the projector may have been a candlelight projector. My main problem is Henderson-Ames made military costume stuff–sifting around it is a chore. But one auction site mentioned a ‘Henderson-Ames’ candlelight projector. I did a little work on my end; it does project an image, and it can be focused (though vs. a 100 watt bulb, I can’t see how useful it would be. The lens itself, in much finer condition than mine, sold for $200 on ebay; one more comparable for $149. The company, A. Darlot, was bought out in 1923, so it’s definitely an antique. Given it’s still got a lens cap, and it’s attached to the product it came with, it might be worth more. Damn if antique roadshow didn’t visit earlier this year!

The green window is so dark–can’t imagine seeing through it to a film number–but I’ll take your word for it.

Any idea on the age of the Argus-es? There are a few set screws; I presume that’s how to change the lenses back in the day, perhaps?
Thanks for the info!! 😛

p.s.; yep, one of them set screws allows the lens to screw right off…

[sleeping]

Here, a manual: http://www.butkus.org/chinon/argus/argus_c-3/argus_c-3.htm

[ravnostic]

Cool! Thanks, much, Sleeping! Which reminds me…I work tonight and should be sleeping myself (at this point–it’ll be a catnap.) But new toys are so fun…

Checked most of the stuff. Scales are photo related, and not worth much (more than I paid, however). I think I have a spool of 35mm film lying around (expired, of course) so I might play with the better Argus just to see. I’ll figure out a way to make use of the rest. And I still love the mechanical timer, even though it’s maybe worth $20. Worse comes to worse, the lens in the candle-projector thingiemabob is worth more than I paid for the whole lot. 🙂

[Elsinore]

Oh I’m drooling over the Arguses!! I just got one with 5 shutter speeds; yours both have 7 (the dial that reads 5-300), so they’re probably older (they cheaped out a bit later in the line). They’re known to be surprisingly usable cameras even 40-50 years after manufacture. Btw, it gets tougher to turn the shutter speed down to 5 as a bit of a safety mechanism–that speed is so slow, they apparently wanted you to be sure you wanted that speed.

[ravnostic]

Elsinore; both seem pretty slow at low shutter speeds; the older one (based on appearances) seems to practically be bulb–until I release, it’s open (actually, it seems that way on most settings. The newer one also, but to a much lesser extent; but I’m sure the ‘lube’ or whatever in either is as old as the camera). Both are equipped with the remote cord threads, though, so maybe that’s by design? The newer one has the 7 listed shutter settings; the older has ” 5,10,20,30,50,75,100,150,200,300. The older one also goest to f/18 while the newer to f/16. Either need servicing, but both seem servicable, at least.

[Elsinore]

Ahhh I missed the older one had all 10 speeds. Are you sure the older one isn’t set to bulb mode? The setting is a dial around the shutter release. You should have a choice between B and I for Bulb and Instant. It’s not uncommon for old cameras to have sticky shutters at low speeds, though. Think you can shoot some cleaning fluid/lube in there (I want to say lighter fluid can be used, but don’t quote me on that) and fix it a lot of the time. I have a late 1940s 35mm folding camera that is sticky from 1/10 or 1/25 and slower, but I haven’t messed with it, cause I don’t really need speeds that slow.

[sleeping]

Best thing to do for starters if a shutter is slow is just run it a bunch of times (like 20 or so) and see if that helps, sometimes it just needs to get moving a bit. Flushing with solvents like lighter fluid can help but it can also make things worse (free up gunk and carry it into places it shouldn’t go). For something like a C3, where the shutter mechanism is pretty basic it’s probably fine, but I would avoid it for anything rare/valuable.

[ravnostic]

You are correct; I had it set to ‘B’ (I mentioned the ‘b’ and ‘i’ in my post, but didn’t notice it was on ‘b’ when I replied. Once on ‘i’, I can believe the settings. No lube required. (Damn. One less good use for lube that’s going wasted with my new work life social schedule.) *piffle*

[ravnostic]

Sleeping; it was just my photography grwowless at work; cams were set at ‘b’ and not ‘i’. Elsinore was spot on, and not that I have a millisecond timer (but I love my minute timer, which is still ticking away in the background after 2 hours), but it seems at least reasonably accurate.

Okay. Must nap. in 3 hours, I have to work. I’ll be back for discussion either just before my shift (prior to 6ish pm MST) or on my first break (10ish pm MST). Damned hobbies. How much sleep did Edison lose when embroiled in discovering a decent filament?

[ennuipoet]

The company on your lens thingy is ilex (link:http://www.nwmangum.com/Kodak/Rochester.html) a lens company in Rochester. I didn’t dig hard but it appears that you have a lens for a large format camera
[url]
http://www.photokb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/photo-darkroom/558/Anyone-know-what-this-lens-might-be%5B/url%5D.

I found several dead listing on ebay for the same thing, all long gone with no info or price.

[ennuipoet]

More on Ilex: http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Ilex

[soosh]

I’ve got two of those arguses, one a complete brick that doesn’t move a bit, and one a perfectly functional one that a TF’er sent me for free after he found out I collected old ones.

If you’re interested in selling that projector or the lens from it, let me know.

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