Originally Posted by
mdarnton
If it says both Agfa and Ansco, it's from between the late 1920s and 1942, when the company was taken over and the Agfa name removed. There's no way to precisely date them. Presumably it would be brass and lacquer finished. Features came and went without any obvious reason. Ones without front tilt were made through that period, though there would be a tendency for the no-front-tilt ones to be earlier. After 1942 there was a grey/chrome Deluxe model, then in the 50s the knobs went to plastic and all models turned grey. The last version had slotted stays for the back tilt instead of a sector, plastic knobs and grey color.
It was considered a fancy camera in its time, equal to Deardorff. They're real workhorses.
If you want to get started on the cheap, check out the several threads on using x-ray film. It's dirt cheap (40 cents per 8x10 sheet instead of $4--like 1975 prices!), and you can develop it under safelight. I was frozen with several LF cameras and no interest in using them until I discovered the x-ray option, and now I use nothing else.