Pocket Magda
The Pocket Magda is a cheap camera for plates or film-packs, made by Henri-Armand Fauger of Paris in about 1920.[1] It was made in two sizes, for 4.5x6cm and 6.5x9cm plates or film-packs. The body of the camera is something like a cigarette case, which hinges open along its long side, one half forming a simple folding bed, and the other the rear of the camera, where the plate-holder slides into rails. The lens and shutter unit is another metal box, which lifts out of the rear on its bellows, and fastens to the front of the bed. A strut on each side of the bellows holds the arrangement rigid. A single strut on the bottom right holds the folding body open. When folded, the camera is very compact, like a poor-man's Patent Etui.
The lens is a meniscus. The shutter is a rotating disc. Fauger patented an 'I'-and-'B' shutter mechanism, and it seems likely the patent describes the type used in the camera.[2] Notes on a 6.5x9cm example at Collection Appareils[3] state that a different instantaneous speed is obtained moving the shutter lever upward than downward; but the patent does not claim this. Exposure can also be varied with an aperture disc.
There is a folding Newton finder on the top right of the rear part of most of the examples cited. The notes at Collection Appareils state that this is detachable,[3] but it appears fixed in some of the examples sold at Westlicht sales.
Notes
- ↑ 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). p.642.
- ↑ French Patent 509674, Obturateur photographique, filed in April 1919 and granted in 1920 to Henri-Armand Fauger; at Espacenet, the patent search facility of the European Patent Office.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 6.5x9cm Pocket Magda at Collection Appareils. The page also shows two contemporary advertisements for the camera, one also offering pocket electric lamps, also branded 'Magda', and giving Fauger's address as 77 & 79 rue Turbigo, near the Place de la République.
Links
- Examples sold at Westlicht/Leitz Photographica Auctions:
- 4.5x6cm Pocket Magda offered for sale at the sixteenth auction, in December 2009. Several photos, including the rear with a plate-holder. Finder with cross-hairs, apparently rivetted in place.
- 6.5x9cm Pocket Magda sold at the twelfth auction, in November 2007. Finder with plain glass (or perhaps no glass left), apparently fixed.
- 6.5x9cm Pocket Magda offered for sale at the sixth auction, in November 2004. No viewfinder.
