Wednesday, February 3, 2010

A "new" camera!


"New" to me, anyway. =)
This old Ihagee Patent Duplex plate camera belonged to my grandpa. He's having to downsize his belongings because he moved into a nursing home- so I became the lucky new owner of this time piece. I haven't been able to exactly pinpoint the year that this camera was made, but based upon the research I have done, it seems as if it was manufactured in Germany sometime in the late 1920's or early 1930's.
A little about it:
Ihagee (founded in 1912) was a company that manufactured cameras out of Dresden, Germany until 1945 when the factory was bombed and destroyed in World War 2.
After the war, only a few new cameras were produced by Ihagee, and in the end, the German company couldn't keep up with the technological advances in Japan (who went on to produce cameras like Minolta and Nikon) and the Western World. Foreign ownership also led to Ihagee's demise.

I love this vintage camera ad (circa 1938). See the bottom right? That one is mine. =) Researching the origin and history of this camera has been so interesting. I'd really like to learn how it was used, even though it will just be a display piece. It's definitely a prized possession to me and I feel so lucky to have it!

3 comments:

Mrs. Limestone said...

Love it. Its nice that its nice and shiny - I have some but they look a lot more tired than yours.

Meredith said...

What an incredible camera!

Anonymous said...

Wow that's so interesting!! Lovely blog gorgeous, would mean a lot if you could check out mine and my youtube :) xoxox

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