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Thorney · Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Metro Vancouver, BC

Hi,
I just unpacked my new mint-condition Crown Graphic that I bought on EBay. I've read the other posts on how to date the camera so I think I'm in the 1965 ballpark - but would like a bit more accuracy.. (typical large format man eh?)

Serial number is #976273
Lens Track stamp is B5A

I appreciate your help.

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Cheers!
Thorney

45PSS · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2003 2:04 am Post subject:

You've got to be on the right track as
1). Date stamps were not used in '55.
2). These cameras were not made in '75.

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The best camera ever made is the one that YOU enjoy using and produces the image quality that satifies YOU.

Gandolf · Joined: 26 Dec 2001 Posts: 328 Location: middle earth

the B is for February.

to give you an idea of how popular Speeds and Crowns were, The batch of serial numbers your camera came from was entered in the books on August 17, 1964. Yours was built sometime in February, or roughly 6 months later.

Yours was the 364th out of this batch. So they were making around 2 a day. During the first 6 months of 1940 they built 3264, or close to 20 a day.

Thorney · Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Metro Vancouver, BC

I've found some other enlightenment regarding my camera. Thanks to those who replied earlier for their help.

Maybe this will be of interest to someone:

My camera is one without an Ektalite fresnel. I've checked the focus frame and the number there is not prefixed with a 2 and also there is the tell tale raised ridge upon which the ground glass sits. I had an f6.8 Caltar 210 on my camera today in the late afternoon and found the image more than acceptably bright and even.