Graflex.org

willysmb · Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 128 Location: France _ Europe

Dear Sir,
Is somebody know exactly the lens was mounted on this camera?
Lenght ? aperture ? maker ?

With all my best regards
Laurent

tsgrimm · Joined: 04 Apr 2004 Posts: 158 Location: SE Michigan

http://graflex.net/helpboard/viewtopic.php?p=18787&sid=c7a6bca5215f52c759e10500501aefd4

They certainly are rare. I think the one mentioned here was auctioned off on fleaBay. One of those live auctions where you had to sign up in advance.

I don't think that it sold due to the very high reserve, but I may be wrong.

http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/graphic-ringside-camera-1-c-54cta3hcn1

Found the Christie's announcement for the auction.

Les · Joined: 09 May 2001 Posts: 2682 Location: Detroit, MI

Because fast lenses in the 125mm focal length rarely covered 4x5 and certainly not wide open, Graflex NEVER considered this a camera and only built them when the customer furnished the lens. They designed it around 4x5 because most newspapers had 4x5 holders and it was easier / cheaper for them to use 4x5 than to by a pile of 3x4 holders and film just for one camera. Cropping an image was as common as dektol in the darkroom.

The lens on this camera was made in either '37-'39 for the German military. I found it difficult to believe somebody could have smuggled a military lens out of Gottengen and back here to make the camera during the war.

Later I found out the mount was made by Cook & Perkins, a post-war outfit in Britain, so the lens is not original. The auction did not meet the reserve, so who knows where it is now.

I know of 4 ringside cameras. This one, the one in the Graphic Graflex Photography book, the one Margaret Bourke-White owned. (She was photographed holding it while seated in a jet cockpit in the late 40s, and one Jay Tepper had a couple of decades back. Since these were not considered true cameras, I don't think they were serial numbered.
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"In order to invent, you need a good imagination and a lot of junk" Thomas Edison

Dan Fromm · Joined: 14 May 2001 Posts: 2144 Location: New Jersey

Hey, Les, AFAIK production of 125/2 Xenons started at Schneider's Goettingen works, which opened in 1940, during WWII and continued after. All of the 125/2s I've seen offered on eBay had five digit serial numbers, which is consistent with wartime production. But I once saw one, as in picked it up and looked closely at it, in a camera store near home whose s/n was 6xxxxx; it was coated and its s/n fits the ISCO sequence, not the main Schneider Kreuznach sequence.

Xenons cover their focal length and a tiny bit more.

Les · Joined: 09 May 2001 Posts: 2682 Location: Detroit, MI

I had it that ISCO opened in 1936, rather than 1940. I probably got that from Marc James Small. This one has serial number 48084. This one was coated, but it's in a C&P mount, so I'd bet it was coated after the war when it when into its helical mount.

Les
_________________
"In order to invent, you need a good imagination and a lot of junk" Thomas Edison