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A Rolleiflex Original at The Autojumble


John Seaman

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The original Rolleilex looks oddly squat compared with later models, but it's a perfectly usable camera, more like a Rolleicord in use, with knob wind and separate shutter cocking. I believe the viewing hood was identical to that fitted to the stereo Rolleidoscop on which the Rolleiflex was based. The red window is quite dark, with a line down the middle – it was hard to see the rather indistinct numbers on the Shanghai 100 ISO film, but I managed to get all 12 exposures. One surprise was that the film area is slightly longer than the typical 56mm of other square format cameras, the film gate is around 59mm high, so there is hardly any gap between the negatives.

 

OrigPN.thumb.jpg.9de19259d4eef358a34e119849bd42df.jpg

 

This camera came with the battered Rolleicord which I tried to make a plastic mirror for. It's in much better nick, with a near perfect mirror, clean undamaged lens and a working shutter. They were made for 6 exposures on 117 film but many were converted to take 620. Mine came with two 620 spools, although I tried trimming a 120 spool to fit it wouldn't turn smoothly, so I had to revive my respooling skills.

The little focusing knob on this example has distance markings but they are hard to use. The knob actually performs nearly two full turns between infinity and closest focus, which is presumably why early variants had no distance markings.

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Cool camera. My dad gave me a 1938 model Rollei, which I still have (packed away), for a photography class freshman year of college. I was a bit embarrassed and intimidated by the others' Nikons and Pentaxes until the professor picked it up and went on about its history and quality. It made some lovely photos. Funny, I just realized that it was only 33 years old then, much younger than the film cameras that I now use.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey John,

 

Nice catch with that original. The lenses look great and obviously perform equally well. The over all condition is excellent. I'm envious!! I had/have an Art Deco model of similar vintage and the spacing was really tight too. Love the subjects you shot and the tones are nice too. My neighbor has a Royal Enfield remke from India, I have a soft spot for old Triumphs although I am generally more interested in the cars MG/Triumph/Healey/Jags etc. . You seem to have an affinity for TLRs.

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