ID on an older LF camera

[GroverC]

Sorry to come out of nowhere with a request for identification thread.

Just wondering if anyone could tell me what this is:

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad215/jiaoqu/KGrHqJHJDYFd52hcdJBQbGGWIsjQ48_20.jpg
http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad215/jiaoqu/T2eC16ZyUE9s6NGyB1BQbGG0Usg48_20.jpg

Hazy pictures from an online ad.

Sorry, and thank you!

[GroverC]

And posted in the wrong forum....

[Sevo]

Looks rather like a upside-down Contessa-Nettel strut folder, or perhaps a Miroflex with some missing parts. As far as using it goes, these beasts have a very sophisticated focal plane shutter - excellent if it works, but 99% don't, and it will be hard to rebuild it (or expensive to find someone who does - even for an experienced camera restorer it is easy to pump a week's worth of labour into them).

[DrTang]

Doesn't that say 'Mentor' on it right there..backwards?

[Sevo]

Doesn't that say 'Mentor' on it right there..backwards?

Good catch - indeed, the entire image grows a little less cryptic once you figure out it was posted upside-down. Yep, if that magazine fits, it will be a Mentor. Hard to tell from hat rather ill-executed photograph, but it is more likely the strut folder than a reflex - it does not look deep enough for the latter, which are more or less cube shaped (or distinctively rectangular and flat in the case of their folders). The lens is the one they used on 9x12cm cameras, so that will be the size. The shutter on a Mentor would be more likely to work than a Nettel (and easier to fix if it does not).