Metharette
Revision as of 15:33, 3 September 2020 by Dustin McAmera (talk | contribs) (Updated Mistermondo ref, and added more on uncertainty over the model name. Mistermondo has renamed this from Gioia to Venus.)
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| Metharette image by yalluflex (Image rights) |
The Metharette is a strut-folding camera made by the German company Camera-Werk Merkel Tharandt from about 1931.[1] It makes 3x4cm images on 127 type rollfilm. Some examples have a folding reverse-Galilean viewfinder instead of the frame finder of the example pictured here.
McKeown notes that the camera was sold under different names.[1] He shows several examples:
- Megor (rebadged for Meyer and fitted with a Meyer lens)
- Hertie
- Venus: rebadged for Salmoiraghi, with the leatherette impressed 'Salmoiraghi', and fitted with that firm's lens; the lens is certainly an Anastigmat Venus, but the correct name for the rebadged camera is not clear. It has been misnamed 'Nova' by some collectors,[2] Dario Mondonico shows another camera as the Nova, and shows a Metharette impressed 'Samoiraghi' naming it the Venus, though his site previously named this camera the 'Gioia' (joy).[3])
An example was seen at Ebay, badged 'Primula', modified with a Laack Dialytar and Compur shutter with helical focusing ring.[4]
  
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| Metharette 3x4cm, Rodenstock Trinar-Anastigmat 1:4.5 5cm lens, shutter by Gauthier. Images by yalluflex. (Image rights) |
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 McKeown, James M. and Joan C. McKeown's Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras, 12th Edition, 2005-2006. USA, Centennial Photo Service, 2004. ISBN 0-931838-40-1 (hardcover). ISBN 0-931838-41-X (softcover). p665.
- ↑ Filotecnica Salmoiraghi (archived) at Storia della Fotografia.
- ↑ Salmoiraghi at Dario Mondonico's Mistermondo site.
- ↑ 'Primula' offered for sale at Ebay (item 111594755563). The seller 'cupog' in Slovakia suggests that the camera may have been modified by a Czech camera maker, perhaps Birnbaum (though the name is hardly similar to others used by Birnbaum).
