Graflex.org

[alfred67]

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of some good historical and/or technical information regarding the Graflex 4x5 Combat Graphic camera. I'd like to know anything more I can about them: Serial number details, where and when they were used, civilian version versus military version, etc... Any help would be much appreciated.....

Thank you...

[Les]

This is the only thing I've gatthered and its from bits here and there.

It seems it was designed rather late in the war --'43-'44. It saw the most use in the Pacific theatre where temperature, humitidy and some voratious mold spores found the leather on the Anniversary particulalry appetizing.

The war ended about the time they were geared up to make the camera, consequently lots of these were probably scrapped so as not to compete with new cameras Graflex needed to sell. Graflex did try to market them to the civilians as the Graphic 45. Some say the civilian version was black, and yet I just saw a green Graphic 45 go by on ebay a month ago.

Back in the late 60s early 70s Burke & James found a cache of them and were selling them for $70 each, New old stock.

[alfred67]

Ok, thanks for the info...
Yeah, I've seen both green ones and black ones go on Ebay - and I heard somewhere that the green was military, and the black was civilian. But I haven't found any authoritative source, so who knows...

Thanks again.