My latest purchase is an enamel Agfa advertising sign featuring a cartoon boy holding a roll film camera with flash. He is stood on a large Agfa box advertising Isopan ISS roll film. It’s large. Very large. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it but it’s colourful and fun. Graeme
A recent auction featured nearly thirty wood and brass cameras with many being by Lancaster and Thornton Pickard. There was a good selection of these British cameras from the late nineteenth century. The most expensive wood and brass camera did not sell. It was described as a fine British mahogany sliding box wet plate camera. […]
Cameras that look like a pocket watch are not usually rare but recently a Lancaster pocket watch camera sold for £17,000. Wow ! It was small (2×1.5 inches diameter) and was nickel plated (not gold). It had a six part sprung telescopic lens and a sprung brass drop shutter. The camera had an engraved case […]
When browsing in a Devon antique shop I came across three early ambrotype photographs and bought two of them. Two had the details of the photographer on the back of the frame and they were from Portsea, Portsmouth. One I discarded as the condition was poor but the other was in good condition and the […]
I have bought a Sanders Le Meritoire camera outfit recently. It’s a mid-range Sanderson wood and brass camera from the late nineteenth century. It came with dark slides, some original plates and its original wooden box that still had its key. Sanderson was a major maker of British cameras and is perhaps best known for […]
I bought a Rouch mahogany and brass camera at Photographica 2016 last weekend. It’s an English camera from the 1880s and is an unusual one. Rouch was formed in 1854, originally being Burfield & Rouch. The address was 180 The Strand, London. The company manufactured fine quality cameras and equipment and was awarded several Prize […]
Rare cameras are often very old, or specialist cameras, for the simple reason that less of them were probably made. Antique cameras may also not survive or not survive intact. I am most interested in very early cameras and these tend to be made of wood and brass. Sometimes woodworm is a problem but brass also deteriorates […]
This Sunday, 22nd May, is Photographica, the largest camera and photographica fair in the UK. The event is organised by the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain ( PCCGB ). If you love old cameras then this is the place to be on Sunday. The event is held at the society’s Lindley Hall in Vincent […]
I have recently bought a nineteenth century shutter made for early wood and brass cameras. It was made by F. W Branson and was called the “Phoenix”. The shutter was patented in 1884 and was a combined drop and flap shutter. This meant that the light sensitive plate could be exposed either by simply raising […]
A recent auction of wood and brass cameras included cameras by the English makers of Meagherand Hare. Both were quality camera makers in the second half of the nineteenth century but the higher prices were achieved by the Meagher cameras. The number of cameras involved was relatively small but there did seem to be a preference […]