In my never ending search for accessories for my early 1950's Bundesgrenzschutz bicycle, I come across all kinds of cool things, but this latest one is one of the best "non-issue" items I've acquired. The item up for show today is a mid 1940's, to 1950, post-war bellows camera.
The camera is German made by the AGFA company of Munich, Germany. It is marked "MADE IN GERMANY, U.S. ZONE". This dates the camera to the 1945 to 1950 time frame.
This would make the camera correct for an early BGS trooper to have been carrying it while touring around the base on the "Dienstrahd" bicycle. The U.S. Zone designation indicates the time period after WW2 when Germany was divided up into the different zones that were occupied by the various Allied military forces.
For more information on these medium-format, folding cameras, check out this great website:
http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~yue/misc/AnscAgfa.html
As an interesting side note, here is the list of "Made In" inscriptions and the dates they were used to help you narrow the era of the old German made items....... this is in now way hard and fast, and will still see "made in Germany" on items throughout the post-war years. If you do see any of the "made in" phrases listed below, it will certainly help you narrow the age of the item down.
1945 - 1950 U.S. Zone
1950 - 1954 Western Germany
1955 - 1989 West Germany
1990 - now Germany
And now the moment we've all been waiting for.......... here's the photo album of this wonderful little camera:
3 comments:
Wonderful camera; nice shots.
The gallery was precious in my search for this model. I was very proud in publicize your link at my blog:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9RzFo2W07XY/UCsC_Ba4bNI/AAAAAAAAA20/ALjlcx4piAw/s1600/ST839116.JPG
Greetings from Brazil!
My father got this exact camera Venture 66 V when he was in Germany. I have it now, it's nice to get some info on the camera.
Post a Comment