Why so few pre-war 35mm folders?

Having bought a Zeiss Super Nettel I have started to dig further

into the early 35 mm folding cameras. I mean a cameras where the

lens has disappeared behind a board when the camera has closed.

 

I can only find 7 manufacturers who ever made one before the war:

Agfa Ansco, Balda, Certo, Kodak, Voigtlander, Welta and Zeiss. None

of the other usual suspects: nothing from Braun, Houghton Ensign,

Ihagee, Kershaw, Universal or Wirgin. Not a single Japanese

manufacturer. Was there really that little interest in the market?

 

Can anybody help me here, have I missed something?

Perhaps, most of the iron available was put to use in making war machinary than cameras?

Costs of printing, I think. Po' folks used miniature cameras that shot 2x3 or postcard size on roll film, and had the negatives contact printed. 35 mm emulsions of the day didn't enlarge well and enlarging cost more than contact printing. A contact print of a single 35 mm frame is pretty useless.

 

35 mm took off and 2x3 faded after WW-II. By 1960 or so 2x3 was pretty well extinct. Although my father, who died in 1980, used his Kodak tourist until shortly before his death.

 

Did Zeiss Ikon make 35 mm folders before the war?

The war started at the end of 1939. That's not long after 35mm cameras were being used in any significant number.

the last point is a good one: the 35mm cartridge was introduced about 4 years before the war broke out; it's more surprising that there were so many different 35s developed in such a short time than that there were so few folders. Also, Kodak, despite having invented the 35mm cassette, didn't even LIKE it, and went to great lengths in the USA to avoid making cameras for it.... to the extent of developing a different 35mm system, which did include some very nice folding cameras in several different models and price ranges.

 

Also, despite the success of the Retina line, I think the "image" of the 35mm was much more tied up in the Leica layout, and manufacturers were more inclined to copy this than the retina when developing things like the Argus A, Univex Mercury, etc. Other things being equal, a rigid camera is cheaper and easier to build too, especially if there's a rangefinder involved.

In the USA common folks has a big depression before WW2! The war effort in some places generated the first real decent production jobs since the 1929 crash; and massive layoffs of the early 1930's. Most all prints then by common folks were contract prints; or ones enlarged just say 2x. Kodacolor didnt come out unit the middle of WW2. B&W prints were the print before WW2 in the USA. Kodak had Panatomic-X in 35mm in the 1930's; for the 35mm market. Kodak gave away a mess of box cameras to kids for non 35mm films; prior to WW2. Kodaks tried hard pushing 620 and bantum 828 as the formats one should be using. Prior to the USA entered WW2; Kodak had the Kodak bantum special with a coated F2 Ektar. Kodak also had the Ektra 35mm system camera with coated lenses too. My mom used a folder in the 1930's; either 116 or 616; and mostlty did alot of contact printing. Here dad had an even larger folder; the negative is about the size of a postcard. The faster 35mm films of the 1930's non Panatomic-X might have been what we like in quality and grain of todays dime store 110 film. :) <BR><BR>Contact prints in 35mm are not too showable; with a postcard size folder; they made an great image with no enlarger. <BR><BR>This question might be like asking why wasnt 110; disk; and APS used alot in the 1990's.

I can only comment on Braun.

 

Since the first camera they made was in 1948 it would have been very difficult for them to make a 35mm folder before 1939 and infact Braun NEVER made a 35mm folder of any kind. They only made a few MF folders in 6X6 and 6X9 and the Norica in dual format.

You might check Nagel cameras. This is the company which became Kodak AG. The 30's economic slump made it a good deal, and Kodak bought it out. Nagel at that time was working on a smaller format folding camera. I think it was a 127mm camera though so I am not sure it ever made it to 35mm until after the company got bought.

 

The real inovation that brought 35mm film to the masses was the preloaded cassette, which is a Kodak patent from 1934. Up until that was made available, anyone who used 35mm film had to load their own film into reusable cassettes in the dark. I am sure everyone has found old ones in camera stores. Each manufacturer must have made their own for their own cameras. Not convenient. However, roll film with its paper backing was plenty easy to deal with, plus contact prints were easily viewed, etc. as mentioned above.

 

35mm had the added benefit of more frames per roll, which probably satisfied the new frugality of a post-depression economy very nicely.

 

The depression had an impact on both sides of the Atlantic then mostly it seems to the advantage of Kodak.

To make it short, prior to WWII, 35mm was just not taken seriously by most photographers. At the time, anything smaller than 6X9 was classified as "miniature" and serious photographers just kind of ridiculed the whole idea of using such things for serious work. Not to mention things like primitive enlarging equipment, emulsions that wouldn't bear up to 8x enlargement, ad infinitum.Then too, there was the depression and few people had the money for such things.

Kodak developed the daylight loading cartridge (more or less the same 35mm cartridge we use today) for use in its Retina. Before then, 35mm users (primarily Contax and Leica users) had to pre-load their film in the dark. The first Retinas arrived in 1934 and cost $52.50. The Retinas were produced by Nagel Camerawerk, which it bought just two years earlier in 1932.

 

Nagel Camerawerk also made the Pupille (127), the Ranca (127), the Vollenda (127, 120-6x6 and 120-6x9) and the Recomar (6x9 and 9x12).

 

Getting back to the topic, I can't recall if Agfa made any folding Karats before the war. I have one with an uncoated lens, but I don't know if it's prewar or immediate postwar.

 

Anyway, as someone else had said, 35mm was a niche market at that time and didn't really take off until after World War II. In the late 1930s, most of Europe was a bit busy with war.

The list of pre-war 35mm folders is not complete. There was the Beirette made by Beier. Wirgin made no 35mm folders, but a 35mm camera with collapsible lens/shutter (Edinex).

 

As others mentioned, 35mm photography was not as popular as it seems before WWII. First, there were the costs of printing, second the costs for the cameras which needed a much more advanced frame spacing and frame counter mechanism than cameras for films with a paper back like 120 and 127 format. 127 format folders were quite popular in the late 1920s and 1930s in Germany. The cameras did not need a frame spacing and counter mechanism and were almost as pocketable as any 35mm folder. You could make 16 shots in the 30x40mm (3x4cm) format on these films which was just sufficient for a weekend.

Pre-War Agfa Karats weren't true 35mm, they used a unique double casette system somewhat similar to Kodak's later Instamatic loads, although I believe that it was 35mm film in it. Neat camera!

In the '30s, it was not very difficult or expensive to enlarge a 35mm frame, and the 35mm film was saved as we know it today not by the expensive Leica, Contax and or the Exakta. The 35mm survived due to a Radio maker in Ann Arbor...the Argus camera of 1936. They sold thousands, and thousands of this Bakelite camera. The Argus, introduced the 35mm to the masses. Later on, in 1939 came the C3...the brick; sporting a rangefinder with speeds from B - 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200,and 300. The lens a 50/3.5 Cintar which I believe, was made by Wollensak. A lot of family "snapshots" came from this camera at least here in America.

35mm cameras were/are pretty small, even if not folding. The long film-to-flange distance of the 75-110mm lenses on MF folders were the ones that contribute to the bulk of the camera, when opened, i would say.

Vivek, Dan, David, Kelly: I agree that War demands, the US Depression and the invisibility of a 35mm contact print are all significant downers for the 35mm market. My question was that, given that some people did want 35mm cameras, why did so few manufacturers respond with FOLDERS.

 

After all, Zeiss responded to Leica head on in 1932 with the Contax but Kodak came in obliquely in 1934 with the folding Retina; their unique selling point was that it folded. And they must have thought it worth while because they came in again with a whole range of folding models. It interests me that so few manufacturers agreed with them and tried to take them on.

 

Dan: yes, Zeiss Ikon made 35mm folders before the war, the Super Nettel in 1934 and the Super Nettel II with Triotar lens in 1936.

 

Jorn: I checked Nagel again. Nagel sold to Kodak in 1932. I can find reference to the 1931 Vollenda but only in 127/120/129 film and nothing in 35mm. In fact Mike Elek in later posting says the Retina was produced by Nagel.

 

Mike, Bill: I can find no folding Agfa Karat but my McKeown shows the Karat to have a retracting front board on scissor arms which was their answer to making the camera compact. The only Agfa folder I found was the Agfa-Ansco Memo.

 

Winfried: you have come up trumps with another folder manufacturer, many thanks.

Keith; the smaller 1930's Retinas with f3.5 lenses are very small when folded up. Once these were only a couple of dollars used; before camera collecting increased radically in the 1970's. The pre WW2 F3.5 Ektars on these were rebadged Schneider Xenars. Some have Zeiss Tessars. There are many variants of these cameras. There was/is a clip on vertical rangefinder that one could use as a focus aid. These cameras are cool still; and usually work well with modern high contrast print films. The retina II camera of the 1930's is larger; has a rangefinder;weighs more; some have a F2 Xenon lens. <BR><BR>Kodak made alot of money with film formats that were unique; and this tended to lock in film and processing sales. HP and epson do the same today with printers. They make almost all the mony on ink cartridges. KODAK really wanted the 828/Bantum series to be "the minature"; not 35mm films.

The sale of real folders; ie 120/620; 116/616 and larger was probably an order of magnitude or two more than the dinky 35mm folder market. There were real low cost folders; that only had an F8 lens; and a couple of shutter speeds. Also a mess of box cameras; some made of paper.

"I agree that War demands, the US depression and the invisibility of a 35mm contact print are all significant downers for the 35mm market"

 

I beg to differ:

 

The US depression, occured from 1929-1932. In 1933 a new President was elected... Roosevelt, and by 1936, the US economy was at its full swing. Jobs, cars and houses for everyone.

 

Like I said before, the 35mm film was saved by the Argus camera in 1936... to the point that Kodak obliged, and made thousands of miles of 35mm film. Thousands and thousands of Argus camera were made before the War and thousands during the War.

 

In 1935, Kodachrome was introduced and it was used extensively by the Argus camera ($12.50 new). Leica, Contax and other 35mm folders were very expensive and could be afforded only by the wealthy and photojournalists.

 

E. Puts wrote on his webside that the Kodachrome was invented to be used in a Leica...What a joke!!!

 

The US economy was magnificent up to December 1941 and during the war, available labor had to be redirected towards the building of Liberty Ships; aircrafts and it's engines for England.

 

In 1940, a British comission came to the White House begging for ships because their dominions of Canada, Australia and New-Zeland could not help them. The Liberty Ships were built from 1940-1945 with a total of 2.700 to ferry war materials across the Atlantic. Every ten days one ship would turn out from 12 shipyards. A work force of 700.000 people.

 

These remarks, OT was just to tell you that our US economy before the war was very strong, and the Argus camera and not an expensive "miniature" camera or a 35mm folder saved the 35mm film as we know it today.

Tito; the depression in the USA lingered through until WW2 started for many folks. <BR><BR>The stock market again crashed in March 1937. This "crash" was the 2nd worst in U.S. history. This destroyed alot of consumer confidence; sales dropped; more folks losing there jobs again.<BR><BR> My grandparents on my moms side could'nt make the tax payments on the raw land they owned outside the city; and had to forfit it to the local government; for unpaid taxes. <BR><BR>In some rural areas of the country; people burned the tax/courthouses down; after alot of common folks lost all their land. The tax records; tax man's maps; land deads all were firebombed in some areas; were folks lost all their land to the taxman. <BR><BR>In some rural areas; folks had no coal service for heat; or electricity either. Folks burned wood to stay warm; some burned up pianos; anything they could burn. In the player piano industry; the 1929 crash basically killed it off.<BR><BR> My dad had a mess of jobs in the mid and late 1930's; probably several dozen; going from city to city; living in boarding houses ; taking whatever job that could be found. Several times he didnt make enough to run the rundown car he had sometimes. He paid a chap once a nickle a day to store in on blocks in on city in the late 1930's.<BR><BR> Until Pearl Harbor time; my dad basically was a nomad; hustling for whatever jobs that could be found; barely making anything. During the peak of WW2; he made at one huge war factory a huge sum of money; 1000 bucks per month. Yes that is not a typo either. He radically cut the crap out of the production bottlenecks; and royally boosted the war output of goods. He was a engineer with a college degree; it took him say 10 years to really get back into engineering. <BR><BR>During WW2 the war boards halted alot of consumer goods from being produced; folks started to have some cash; but not so many new goods! Alot of folks in the war effort factories placed alot of their money into "savings bonds"; to help the war effort. <BR><BR>In the Willow run plant at Ford Motor in Detroit; the Liberator/B-24 bomber production was set up as like a car production line. They cranked out at the peak about 1 bomber per hour. Old man Ford paid the workers in cash.<BR><BR>There was also a major drought in the 1930's in the USA; the "dust bowl". Some midwest areas had little rain until the 1940's. Several million folks left the ravaged midwest areas; and bought 1 way tickets on trains; or loaded up old trucks and fled/ran. Some farming areas lost say 8cm of topsoil; and the farms just died; and were abandoned. Alot of this "dust bowl" happened in the later 1930's too. In Amarillo Texas; the worst was in about 1935. John Steinbeck's book The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is about this dust bowl event. <BR><BR>Dust bowl link below; click on the image. Every wunder why a 1930's camera is abit dusty?<BR><BR><a href="http://www.ptsi.net/user/museum/dustbowl.html"><img src="http://www.ptsi.net/user/museum/images/dust2.gif"></a>

...If you want to know more about the 1936 Argus, go to this site, which I found today, and see its impact, and its acceptance by the general public using the novel Kodak 35mm film cassette, launched in 1934 for the Retina.

 

http://www.vintagephoto.tv/argusa.shtml

Kelly, thanks for the information!

The WW2 war boards made/placed mini factories in small midwest USA towns to use the vast number of workers who were still out of work; broke; living on fumes; still behind on the mortgage payments. <BR><BR>In Southern Indiana and northern Kentucky; there were several radio vacuum tube plants built; improved; to crank out radio tubes for B-17 and B-24 etc radio sets. Also there were many radio crystal factories built to grind the crystals for the B-17 radio sets in Oklahoma and other raveaged areae. Each crystal was ground; lapped to make the frequency spot on. If the crystal was not flat enough; they "chirp". Less military strategic jobs had large billboards to lure folks to these new jobs; folks waited in long lines for applications. Many folks who were out of work in the early 1930's ran out of assets in the mid 1930's; and then really were in a pickle with nothing. A common tale was that "your neighbors were so broke that they had to eat dirt to survive; and just before the war their entire yard was sunk down several inches at the lot line."<BR><BR><a href="http://www.shambhala.org/business/goldocean/causdep.html"><img src="http://www.shambhala.org/business/goldocean/gdunemp.gif"></a> <BR><BR><i><b> Subject: Why so few pre-war 35mm folders? </i></b>..<BR><BR>most folks in the 1930's in the USA had little or no cash to spend on expensive cameras. They stuggled with more basic things; like food and a roof to live under; just basically how to make ends meet with little or no cash.

Hi Tito; I believe Argus came out in Ann Arbor Michigan (Where the University of Michigan is); a suburb of Detroit. The one I still have of my dads is an Argus A2 from about 1946 maybe. He had an older one before that; long gone now; maybe a prewar model. It was black plastic; it got dropped long ago; a massive light leak. Here in the states; many of us have in out brains the Dec 6, 1941 date; ie Pearl Harbor; but poor Europe was involved many years before this. <BR><BR>The 1930's discussion of economics was just for discussing the ablity the common man to buy a 35mm camera before ww2; not really trying to start a political firestorm.<BR><BR>With my dads early 1940's slides; the Argus ones are not the sharpest ones on the planet. The Kodachromes have decent colors; the NON-kodachromes are just clear and with a tad of blue and magenta dyes; say 5 percent left! These are totally shot. There is a day and night difference in usabiltiy in these slides. <BR><BR>The faster Super-XX of that era was still grainy; so most folks used larger roll films.

Kelly: thanks for the comments on Retina size. I had not realised how compact was the Retina 1. Those are thought provoking words of yours about your dad?s experiences in the mid to late 30?s.

 

Tito: my prime interest when starting this thread was the folding 35mm cameras but in researching these I also became aware of the 35mm evolution. I discovered then the role of Argus as the first mass produced affordable 35mm and the first American 35mm. One day I shall go looking for the first pre-war British, French, Italian and Japanese 35mm camera manufacturers.

Guys, some very nice and interesting comments following Keith's initial post, especially from Tito and Kelly. Even nicer to see that you've stayed objective and not let things get too steamed up. Come to think of it, that's one of the nicer things about this Forum - we very rarely see any of that "flaming" that goes on in other Forums (Fora?).

 

My two bob's worth regarding the price of 35mm cameras, whether folding or with collapsable lenses, is that we have various US manufacturers not previously associated with this field, to thank. The first was Argus, then there was Univex, and then - a hell of a lot of others. The main thing was that Argus had got the price of a decent quality 35mm camera down to just ten bucks in 1936, quite a drop when you consider the first Kodak Retinas cost over $50 and that price was a damn sight less than what the Leicas and Contaxes were going for. One of my favourite 35mm cameras in my Trophy Cupboard is an original bakelite art-deco $10 Argus Model A, and it sits quite proudly alongside a lot of far more expensive stuff. Stephen Gandy has an excellent feature on the first Argus in his Classic Camera Forum website, at www.cameraquest.com, by the way - well worth a visit!

 

Keith, just a couple of things about British 35mm stuff, before I sign off. Ensign/Houghton/Butcher never made a single 35 mm camera, either before WW2 or after it. The closest they got was the Ensign Multex, which actually used 127 (VP) reel film. The first British 35mm camera was the Ilford Advocate of 1949, a very nice cream-coloured compact item using a 35mm wide-angle Dallmeyer lens. LOL from PN