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Thread: Help Identifying an old Gundlach bellows camera

  1. #11

    Re: Help Identifying an old Gundlach bellows camera

    Quote Originally Posted by Two23 View Post
    I agree this is a standard 5x7 Korona that has been modified. I have one with both 4x5 and 5x7 backs. Koronas can be roughly dated by the company name on the bottom of the front standard. Mine dates to about 1925.


    Kent in SD
    The decal on the front (it's a gold decal, not a metal plate) says "Gundlach Manhattan Optical Co. Rochester, N.Y." Does that narrow the date range at all?

  2. #12
    Foamer
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    Re: Help Identifying an old Gundlach bellows camera

    From the website that would put it 1902 to 1924. If the shutter & lens look original to the camera, that would date it (Ilex) between ~1910 and maybe 1920, when Compur shutters began taking over. My best guess anyway.


    Kent in SD
    In contento ed allegria
    Notte e di vogliam passar!

  3. #13

    Re: Help Identifying an old Gundlach bellows camera

    Quote Originally Posted by Two23 View Post
    Lenses often didn't come with a camera. Usually the camera purchaser would buy whatever they liked at the dealer. On cameras this old chances are the lens was added during the time the camera was in active use. Often the best clues are in the lens board--does the finish and material match the rest of the camera? Are there empty screw holes suggesting at one time another lens was there? Is the date of the lens or shutter different from the camera? I don't consider a lens to be a crucial clue to dating a camera, but it can suggest how advanced the photographer was.


    Kent in SD
    The board with the lens mounting is definitely different and doesn't match the rest of the camera. My father was an Army photographer (signal corps) during WW II and did a lot of film and photography work after that for Union Pacific Railroad. I remember this camera being around as a kid, but never being used. Both he and his father did a lot of metal and woodworking, including fabricating pieces, so I can see either of them having made the modifications.

    I put the original 5x7 backplate on now that I have a better understanding of what the parts are and what I'm looking at.

  4. #14
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    Re: Help Identifying an old Gundlach bellows camera

    The lens dates to 1924 and later, but if not original that doesn't help pin down the date to the camera necessarily. However, it does suggest the camera was in professional use from mid 1920s until when your dad acquired it. He might have bought in from a retiring photographer, estate sale in the 1950s or 1960s? I think the odds are this was originally owned by a professional photographer who owned a studio. Impossible to say positively though.


    Kent in SD
    In contento ed allegria
    Notte e di vogliam passar!

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