"Chrome age Cameras"

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>Hey, I wanna play too. Darn new job keeping me so busy these days</p><div></div>

[john_cogburn]

<p>Or was it the "Nickel Age"? :)</p>

<p>I think most of the metal on my late 50s and early 60s cameras is nickel-plated brass, usually with the filter ring, speed-selecting ring, shutter-release, and a few other small parts chrome-plated. The cameras with lots of chrome were usually the cheaper ones, weren't they, like the Hong Kong Halina and the Bolsey?</p>

<p>I suppose that when shiny silver cameras became much too common and mundane, there were the Nikons, and the Hi-Matics, Canonets and the Yashica Electro rangefinders painted black, for guys who wanted to look like a real, stealthy professional.</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Allen, Yashicas are always welcome here! Louis, you are like Rick, really pristine Contax, lovely "product" shot as well.<br>

John, I'm fairly sure that Nickel went out in the thirties when chrome became readily available. My model one Retina uses nickel, it's easy to pick because of it's somewhat golden appearance and usually more shiny than the matte chrome on newer cameras. Quality cameras were chrome over brass or die cast alloy, the bargain basement variety were chrome over stamped metal.</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Thanks Martin, the last series Contaflexes had the shiniest chrome of all!</p>

[allancobb]

<p>Thank you Tony, my shot doesn't reveal it, but the older TL-E is actually a bit shinier than the TL-Electro! Maybe not as much mileage on it. And that is a lovely Bessamatic; I have only one Voigtlander product, the CV 15/4.5 Super-Wide Heliar... in chrome of course!</p>

[john_cogburn]

<p>Ok, I thought that the less-smooth, less-reflective metal coating was something other than chrome.<br>

What I would like to know is what type of metal was used for the top and bottom covers of the typical late 50s/early 60s cameras, and what type of metal coating was used on the outside surfaces.</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>John, many were made of brass, but a few were built from a die cast aluminum alloy. A lot of the cheaper folders were built from thin stamped steel. Most that weren't painted were covered in Chrome as it held it's luster and was reasonably cheap.<br>

Chrome was available before WW11, but was hard to access during and shortly after the war. Some more upmarket cameras from the seventies were covered with Titanium, like the Nikon F3T and OM4Ti.<br>

I recently bought a 50mm 3.5 Heliar in Leica thread mount, the one made by Cosina, and they built this limited edition model with a Nickel plating...so what goes around, comes around!</p>